FanHouse WinkAdams

The Mountain West is as major conference that nobody wants to admit is a major conference. The Mountain West thoroughly embarrassed the Pac-10 in football during the regular season and Utah proved that it was the best team on the field after walloping Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. To make matters worse, the trouble-making conference wants to propose a college football playoff.

The NCAA wasn't about to take that lying down.

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.

Brigham Young had one of the longest home winning streaks in the nation to start the 2008-09 season. Now the Cougars have won two games at the Marriott Center in recent weeks. UNLV played an outstanding second half as the Rebels won in Provo for the first time since 2005, scoring a 76-70 win. (Which I believe is the last time any Mountain West team won at BYU.)

Just a week ago, you had to wonder if the Rebels were even going to challenge for the Mountain West title after losing at Colorado State.

Yeah, nobody is going to be talking about that loss anymore.

Not with this performance. If you had any question about UNLV's fortitude, you shouldn't any more.

The Mountain West was looking for some signature wins only a few weeks ago. Now they are flush with huge wins after UNLV and Utah did the conference proud by knocking off No. 18 Louisville and No. 16 Gonzaga respectively. Even though some geniuses didn't believe that it could be done.

The Runnin' Rebels were mighty impressive, knocking off the host Cardinals, 56-55, without star guard Wink Adams. Oscar Bellfield hit the winner with 14.2 seconds left and fittingly, it was UNLV's defense that sealed the win. The Runnin' Rebels used a strong defense to stifle the Cardinals for most of the afternoon. Though, the ESPN announcers would never admit that. They were too busy claiming that Louisville was having an "off-night." Yes, that tends to happen when an inspired opponent is harrassing your every shot.

UNLV dominated Arizona on Saturday, winning 79-64, and giving the Mountain West that signature win that they had been lacking in recent weeks. Wink Adams had a huge game, scoring 25 points, giving Rebels fans the performance that they had been seeking in recent weeks. Not to say that Adams has struggled, but expectations were high for this exceptional senior.

While UNLV was winning and bringing some much-needed prestige to the conference, the same couldn't be said for BYU. The Cougars were beating No. 20 Arizona State, but let them off the hook, losing 76-75, when Charles Abouo's last-second tip was a touch too late.

BYU looked like they won on Abouo's put-back, but replays showed that he was just a moment too late. And right now BYU fans aren't really happy with the state of Arizona when you also add in Arizona's win over the Cougars in the Las Vegas Bowl.

BYU's loss at University of Phoenix Stadium was the first of the season for the Cougars, but brought to mind Dennis Green's classic meltdown about letting the Sun Devils off the hook. (They are who they thought they were.) BYU had a huge win over North Carolina (Adam's note, I'm a moron) noble loss to North Carolina last year, but there hasn't been much since. You just can't seem to count on the Cougars in big games. And not to harp on this point, but if the MWC wants multiple bids, they need to win games like this.

San Diego State did beat UC Santa Barbara at home. We can count that as a good win for the Mountain West. So the top three conference teams split with the Arizona schools and beat one of the best teams in the Big West. Not bad, when you consider Wyoming's win over Sacramento State and New Mexico's loss to Texas Tech is a wash. This wasn't really as good of a weekend as it could have been in the Mountain West, but it was a step in the right direction.

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".