Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference. He filed this report after Friday night’s MW Tournament semifinal between UNLV and Colorado State.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Anthony Bennett Is Good When He Wants To Be. Bennett made a big splash in the first half with a three-minute run that included a pair of free throws, back-to-back-to-back threes, and a play where he grabbed a rebound and led a fast break that ended in a Katin Reinhardt three — a stretch that turned a 23-21 game into a 37-24 advantage. But, in the other 11 minutes he played in the first half, he attempted just two field goals and grabbed one board. And, just after those three threes, he got the ball on the baseline and backed up to the three-point line for a heat check, which can perhaps be forgiven. There was more of the same for much of the second half, as over the first 13 minutes he took no shots from the field and grabbed just one rebound in eight minutes of action. But he came alive down the stretch to help his team close the game out. Certainly part of the reason for Bennett’s slow stretches can go to Pierce Hornung’s tough defense, but for a guy who is going to be an NBA lottery pick, is getting limited by a 6’5″ (maybe) Hornung a viable excuse? More to the point, Bennett just has problems with consistent effort, something that isn’t unusual for a freshman. But for the Rebels to max out in March, they need Bennett to max out.
   

   Anthony Bennett’s Stat Line At The End Of The Game Looks Great, But He Was Absent For Large Stretches

2. Colton Iverson and the Rams. The senior big man was on the very short list of players seriously considered for Mountain West Player of the Year (I said Jamaal Franklin, the MW said Kendall Williams). Iverson restated his case tonight, carrying his team with 24 points and 16 boards on 9-of-16 shooting (most of which came in the first half), and almost single-handedly got the entire UNLV frontcourt in foul trouble. But he didn’t get a whole lot of help; the rest of the Rams contributed a 39.1% eFG.
3. Larry Eustachy – Not an Oddsmaker. On Wednesday night following the Rams quarterfinal win over Fresno State, Larry Eustachy commented that it was 99.9% sure that senior point guard Dorian Green would not play in tonight’s semifinal. Well, that 0.01% chance came through as Green started and played 18 minutes before landing awkwardly midway through the second half and never returning. And really, it didn’t look like Green should have been out there at any point anyway. He was hobbling around from the moment he came out in pregame warm-ups until the moment he left. Hopefully the little tweak that removed him from the game was just that – a little tweak – and he’ll be ready to go when the Rams open NCAA Tournament play on either Thursday or Friday.

Star of the Game. Anthony Bennett. Yeah, I just got done railing about how he went for huge swaths of the game without making much of an impact on the game, but when he did turn on the juice, my goodness, was he ever something special. As his college career winds down with his last handful or so of games, we might as well appreciate just how spectacular he’s been in his time at UNLV.

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Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West Conference. He filed this report after the New Mexico-San Diego State game at the MW semifinals on Friday night.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. New Mexico Bigs. Prior to the season, the consensus was that the Lobos had great guards but would be vulnerable inside, considering Alex Kirk was coming off a season missed to injury and Cameron Bairstow had the reputation of being alarmingly unathletic. But that idea quickly went away and by the time they returned from the Virgin Islands it was pretty well established that both of those guys were solid. Tonight, they were the difference. Between the two of them they combined for 31 points, 18 boards and four blocks (all of those belonging to Kirk), dominating especially in the first 24 minutes as they built up a 21-point lead. Give credit to guards like Kendall Williams and Tony Snell for finding them in position to put in easy hoops, but the size of New Mexico’s bigs gave SDSU trouble all night long.
   

   Cameron Bairstow And Adam Kirk Were Major Problems For The Aztecs (Eric Draper, AP Photo)

2. Tony Snell. Speaking of Snell, he’s been one of my favorite topics all season long and tonight we got the good Snell: 5-of-8 from three, 15 points, five boards, four assists and plenty of credit for helping to force Jamaal Franklin into a 3-of-12 night. He’s averaged 10 field goal attempts over the last 11 games, while never shooting less than eight times and never more than 13; in other words, he’s been consistent.
3. What the Hell, Aztecs? So, this is a team that went 10-8 against Mountain West competition this year. For some time we’ve written off some of their struggles as “oh, they’ve had injuries” or “well, they’re young.” But there are some other problems. While they’ve got some decent size on the wings, they don’t really have much size in the paint, something exploited by the Lobos tonight. They also are severely lacking in shooters; Chase Tapley is rock solid, Xavier Thames is decent, but beyond that there are question marks. James Rahon is supposed to be their designated shooter, but he’s been mired in a two-year slump and tonight airballed a three-footer badly, along with other ugly shots en route to a 3-of-10 performance. Franklin, for all his talents, is not a polished jump-shooter. And guys like Winston Shepard and  J.J. O’Brien think much more highly of their shooting ability than they should. This is a team that can find itself some good shots in the half-court, but they’ve struggled mightily in knocking them down. They’ll likely be pegged somewhere in the #8-#10 range in the bracket against another flawed team in the round of 64, but don’t be expecting this flawed team to be able to knock off a #1 or a #2 in the round of 32.

Star of the Game. Tony Snell. The bigs were primarily responsible for helping the Lobos build their nine-point haltime lead, but it was Snell with back-to-back-to-back threes at the start of the second half that put the game away. And his defensive presence was a big part of holding the Aztecs to 0.83 points per possession. Read the rest of this entry »