March 11, 2007
LAS VEGAS - Mountain West Conference tournament champion UNLV will travel to Chicago to face Georgia Tech at the United Center in the first round of the 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship on Friday. Tip-off is scheduled for 9:25 a.m. PDT (11:25 a.m. Chicago time) and the game will be televised by CBS.
The 25th-ranked Runnin' Rebels (28-6/12-4 MWC), who boast their most victories in 16 years, gathered on campus Sunday to learn their destination for what will be their first appearance since 2000.
Riding a seven-game winning streak that included downing No. 23 BYU 78-70 in Saturday's MWC title game, UNLV earned a No. 7 seed in the Midwest Regional while Georgia Tech is the No. 10 seed.
"Time to get to work in preparing for Georgia Tech," UNLV head coach Lon Kruger said at a press conference at the Cox Pavilion. "It's a great time of year and it was exciting to be part of today's events. Now we look forward to watching tape tonight and getting back to practice in the morning."
Seeded seventh for the first time ever, it was the highest placement for a Runnin' Rebel squad since the 1990-91 team was a No. 1 before eventually losing in the Final Four.
"This group has played like they have something to prove all year long," Kruger said. "Their attitude has been great. Their perspective has been great. I know they'll prepare over the next three or four days for Georgia Tech the same way and look forward to playing on Friday."
The Runnin' Rebels and Yellow Jackets have met each other just once on the basketball court and it was part of an NCAA Final Four. UNLV downed Georgia Tech 90-81 on March 31, 1990, in the national semifinals. Two days later, Jerry Tarkanian's team won the school's only NCAA title with a 103-73 trouncing of Duke.
First-round game times will be announced on Monday. The winner of the UNLV-Georgia Tech game will advance to play the winner of No. 2-seeded Wisconsin vs. 15th-seeded Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Sunday, March 18. The winner of that game advances to the Midwest Regional in St. Louis on March 23 and 25. UNLV is 2-1 all-time vs. Wisconsin, with the most recent meeting coming in Madison on Dec. 7, 2002. The Runnin' Rebels have split two career meetings with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, including downing the Islanders 67-57 earlier this season at home on December 17.
Georgia Tech (20-11, 8-8 ACC) earned an at-large bid after winning seven of its last 10 games. The Yellow Jackets finished the regular season with victories over eighth-ranked North Carolina and Boston College last week before falling in double-overtime to Wake Forest in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Tournament. UNLV has a 14-10 all-time record vs. teams in the ACC, having played nine of the 12 schools that currently make up the league. The last time the Runnin' Rebels faced an ACC opponent was Dec. 4, 1999, vs. North Carolina in a tournament staged in Charlotte.
On Friday Kruger will face the Yellow Jackets for the first time in his 21-year career as a college head coach.
"The two times I've caught clips of them they seemed to be very athletic," he said. "It sounds like they're playing their best basketball here in the last couple of weeks. I think they've gotten healthier as well. They're a very tough ACC program. Coach (Paul) Hewitt does a great job so we expect it to be an extremely tough game."
The Runnin' Rebels, who are 5-2 this season vs. teams that made the 65-team field, will be making their 15th NCAA Tournament appearance overall. UNLV's last trip came in 2000 when it won its first MWC tournament crown. Seeded 10th that spring, the Runnin' Rebels lost in the first round to seventh-seeded Tulsa 89-62. UNLV, which is an impressive 11-2 all-time in first-round matchups, will be looking to win its first NCAA tournament game since downing Seton Hall 77-65 at the 1991 West Regional Final in Seattle.
The Runnin' Rebels have an all-time record of 30-13 (.698) in the Big Dance, which ranks fifth all-time for the highest NCAA Tournament winning percentage, and have made four Final Four appearances (1976-77, 1986-87, 1989-90, 1990-91).
Kruger, in his third-year at UNLV, will be making his 10th career trip to the NCAA and becomes the fifth man in college basketball history to take four different schools to the Big Dance. His all-time tournament record is 11-9, which was compiled at Kansas State, Florida and Illinois. In his career Kruger is 6-3 in first-round games, including winning his last three.
Kruger said he looks forward to the trip to Chicago, which is near where he coached the Illini from 1996-97 through the 1999-2000 season.
"Chicago is a good basketball town," he said. "Great crowds, great enthusiasm, great interest. Georgia Tech is traveling a ways, we're traveling a ways, but Chicago's a great city."
