January 24, 1999

Box Score

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - UNLV's Kaspars Kambala was looking forward to taking on one of the nation's top forwards, TCU's Lee Nailon. Their battle lasted 34 seconds.

Nailon, the WAC's leading scorer, was ejected for throwing a punch in the game's first minute and Kambala went on to score a career-high 29 points as the Rebels upset the No. 21 Horned Frogs 95-88 in overtime Saturday night.

"I wasn't really thinking of Lee being out," said Kambala, who fouled out with 1:06 left in regulation. "I was just excited to be playing against a guy like him because he's so good."

Marquise Gainous took up Nailon's slack by scoring 41 points, but it wasn't enough for TCU (15-4, 3-2 WAC) to avoid its first home loss this season. Nailon is automatically suspended from TCU's next game against Tulsa.

"I am reporting Lee Nailon to the league because I thought that he threw a punch when there was a dead ball,' referee Bill Gracey said.

Horned Frogs coach Billy Tubbs disagreed.

"What I saw was Lee pushed out of bound, then No. 11 (Mark Dickell) grabbed the ball and Lee spun around. He did not swing," Tubbs said. "We've had people going after us and it's just getting a little rough out there."

Dickell wasn't certain what really happened.

"I was just trying to get the ball out of his hands so we could get the ball out and they couldn't set up their press," he said.

On Monday night, Texas forward Gabe Muoneke threw three punches at Kansas players without officials noticing. Longhorns coach Rick Barnes suspended Muoneke for one game after detecting the swings on game films.

The Rebels (11-7, 4-1) twice led by 14 points before the Horned Frogs (15-4, 3-2) used a 17-3 run in the final 4:29 to force overtime tied at 85.

UNLV, coming off a 72-62 loss to SMU, scored the first five points in overtime to seal a fourth straight victory over TCU.

"They had a spurt and did a really nice job and we got out of sync," Tubbs said.

It was worse for UNLV.

"We played hard defensively, but this wasn't one of our best games of the season," said Rebels coach Bill Bayno, added that he "wasn't excited" about Nailon's ejection.

"It's just an unfortunate thing," Bayno said. "The kid's an All-American and he's going to be a lottery pick, but I think he was just jacked for the game."

Shawn Marlon and Desmond Herod scored 18 points apiece for the Rebels. Herod sank 5-of-11 3-pointers.

TCU got 16 points from Ryan Carroll.