FanHouse JoeDarger

Were it not for UCLA, UNLV would be a dead lock for 2009's most befuddling team award. The Rebels are an engima, a two-faced team more befitting of a Tommy Lee Jones' character instead of a Mountain West leader.

Let's recap UNLV's season. Losses at Colorado State, TCU and Wyoming. But a season sweep of BYU. The Rebels won at the Marriott Center -- arguably one of the toughest places to play in the nation. But couldn't win in Fort Collins against one of the worst teams in the Mountain West.

But when the NCAA selection committee looks at bubble teams, UNLV has a win at Louisville, at BYU and home wins over Utah, BYU and Arizona. The Rebels might have saved their tournament lives Saturday night.

You never really need a lot of reasons to make plans on a Saturday morning to head to Las Vegas -- a scant four hours away from where I'm at. But when you add in an all-world matchup between UNLV and Utah, let's just say the incentives just get a little bit sweeter.

But really, will anybody take you seriously when you say that you went to Las Vegas to see a college basketball game? Consider most of your friends dubious. Or maybe jealous. Or perhaps, a little of column A and a little of column B.

There, however, wasn't much time to waste. Only some time to get the wife in the car and get on the road, because we had a game to catch. UNLV was coming off a huge win at BYU on Wednesday and Utah was looking to forge its own monumental road win.

This week, FanHouse is taking a look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.

A side note, I grew up in Southern California, but followed UNLV anyway. So I was very careful in picking the right blogger for this preview, and we got a good one. Jordan Bunker is a fun read over at the Rebel Blog, and you should check him out after you read FanHouse, of course. Jordan is here to break down your UNLV Runnin' Rebels.

The hum of the neon lights on the Strip is no longer the only thing buzzing in Las Vegas. After back-to-back Mountain West Conference Championships and subsequent runs to the Sweet 16 and second round of the NCAA tournament, a contagious strain of Runnin' Rebel Fever has resurfaced and is running rampant throughout the city. Indeed, fifth-year head coach Lon Kruger has redefined the term "rebuilding".

UNLV forward Joe Darger scored 18 points yesterday in leading the Runnin' Rebels to a 71-58 win over Kent State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Darger, a junior, is a good player, but what interests me about him isn't his game, it's his family.

Darger's father is a polygamist. His dad has two wives. One wife has 10 children and the other has eight. Although Joe Darger doesn't talk to the media about his family, his father, John Darger, has spoken proudly about his polygamist lifestyle, about how he supports both his wives, and about how all his children are growing up to be well-adjusted young people, as Joe Darger is, from all accounts.

But make no mistake: Darger's father is a criminal. He's flagrantly violating the law, in both his home state of Utah and every other state, and the Utah attorney general's web site makes clear that it's a law Utah takes seriously. If the authorities choose to, at any time, they'll have absolutely no trouble proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and throwing him in prison. If Darger's father is thrown in prison, would that be OK with you?

If it wouldn't, you're in the minority: Polls consistently show that most Americans believe polygamy should be illegal. President Bush and most members of Congress believe we should amend the Constitution to ensure that marriages like those of Darger's father will remain illegal.

The criminalization of polygamy will remain the law of the land, and John Darger will remain a criminal. And the longer Joe Darger is on American television sets during March Madness, the bigger target his father will become.