Las Vegas, Nevada - The Thunderbird men's basketball team fell on the road Wednesday night to the UNLV Rebels 84–64 in just their second game of the regular season.

“I liked our effort overall,” SUU head coach Nick Robinson said about his team's performance. “We competed for 40 minutes and the guys did a nice job of executing our defense. We've just got a couple of areas we need to improve on, we did a better job rebounding tonight but still the points they got off turnovers and second chance points, 45 out of 84, we've got to improve on.”

After a close start between the two squads, about six minutes into the first half the Rebels went on a 8–2 run to create some separation, but the Thunderbirds were quick to close the gap with a run of their own with a pair of triples from SUU guard Trey Kennedy pulling the Thunderbirds within one with 8:59 to play in the first.

However, after that run the Runnin' Rebels started heating up, and used a big run to end the half with a comfortable 45–31 advantage.

SUU shot well in the first half, finishing the 20 minute period 40 percent from the floor and 50 percent from behind the three-point line, but turned the ball over 12 times leading to some easy baskets for UNLV.  

SUU came out strong in the second half, starting the period on a 5–0 run with forward Casey Oliverson putting in all five points. The Thunderbirds continued to hang around, but UNLV started to pull away midway through the final period, extending their lead to as much as 23. The Thunderbirds fought to the very end, but UNLV came away with the 84–64 victory.

Kennedy and Travon Langston led the team in scoring in a homecoming for them to Las Vegas, both finishing the game with 10 points. Oliverson finished the game with nine points and 10 rebounds and A.J. Hess dropped in nine for SUU as well.

Oliverson said the team learned on Wednesday night they need to make the right decisions and that will come as the season rolls along.

“We just need to start off more disciplined,” he said. “As a team we're going to improve, we're going to be more disciplined as more games come.

Robinson said he like what he saw out of his guys, there were just a few moments where they got away from their game.

“I think all our guys were relatively solid throughout the game,” he said. “We just had stretches where we weren't quite playing Southern Utah basketball and in those stretches UNLV took advantage. But we had other stretches where we played together and were extremely disciplined and executed very well.”

Hess played with foul trouble for a lot of the game, picking up his third midway through the first half.

Patrick McCaw led the Runnin' Rebels with 24 points on Wednesday night. Derrick Jones Jr. put in 19 points and Stephen Zimmerman Jr. finished the game with a double-double scoring 11 points and pulling in 10 rebounds.

The Thunderbirds will play their first home game of the season Saturday night inside the Centrum Arena against UT San Antonio. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m.

A livestream of the game can be viewed online at WatchBigSky.com and the game can be heard over the airwaves on KSUB 590. Updates can be found on Twitter @SUUGameday.