UNLV forward Stephen Zimmerman Jr. (33) walks off the floor after their 95-82 loss to Fresno State during their Mountain West Conference semifinal basketball game at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas Thursday, March 10, 2016. Josh Holmberg/Las Vegas Review-Journal
The journey to the wall didn’t begin Thursday night. That’s just where it concluded.
It took time to reach, time and drama and adversity and injury and chaos and heart and controversy and lots of sweat.
Months of that stuff.
But when UNLV’s basketball team finally came crashing into it, all the will and desire having met its match against an older, tougher, better opponent, the end for the Rebels felt no less sudden.