The Nevada Wolf Pack and UNLV Rebels will meet for the 74th time this Tuesday night (7 p.m.) at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
The Rebels have dominated the rivalry in recent years, winning six in a row. The last Wolf Pack victory in the rivalry was Nov. 26, 2005 by a score of 68-61 at UNLV. UNLV leads the rivalry 54-19.
Both teams are coming off victories. The Wolf Pack, now 11-8 overall and 2-3 in the Mountain West, beat Boise State 75-59 on Saturday at Lawlor Events Center while the Rebels (16-4, 3-2) beat Wyoming 62-50 on Thursday.
This will be the first conference game between the two teams since the two schools were both in the Big West Conference on Feb. 26, 1996.
The Rebels beat the Wolf Pack 71-67 last season (Nov. 14, 2011) at Thomas & Mack. The Rebels jumped out to a 34-18 lead with 2:39 to go in the first half and led 61-43 with just 6:36 to go in the game after a dunk by Justin Hawkins.
The Pack, though, battled back to within just 68-67 after a 3-pointer by Deonte Burton with 22 seconds to play Burton and Malik Story each missed 3-pointers in the last five seconds as UNLV held off the Pack.
Burton finished with 28 points and Story had 19 in the loss. Kevin Panzer played well off the bench, scoring seven points and pulling down four rebounds. Panzer hit a 3-pointer to pull the Pack within 66-62 with 1:50 to go.
Hawkins had 13 points, Oscar Bellfield had 11, Chace Stanback had 12, Mike Moser had 11 rebounds and eight points and Anthony Marshall had seven points and eight rebounds for UNLV.
This year's Rebel team is led by freshman Anthony Bennett (18.4 points, 8.6 rebounds a game). He's led the Rebels in scoring in 16 games this year.
The two teams will play at Lawlor Events Center on March 2.
