Five takeaways from the UNLV basketball team's 65-63 loss at UNR on Saturday:
1. This is who the Rebels are. They will have games where they look as strong as any team in the Mountain West. And then there will be inexplainable losses like this one.
2. Firing coach Dave Rice on Jan. 10 makes even less sense now than it did at the time. UNLV played the same kind of tentative game against the Wolf Pack that it did in games leading up to Rice's dismissal. Firing him in mid-season created chaos and caused dissension on the staff, and UNLV isn't catching San Diego State and Boise State in the Mountain West race anyway.