Mountain West Basketball Tournament opener turns on UNLV’s late stops

In the opening game of the 2026 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Men’s Basketball Championship, the mountain west basketball tournament began with a three-point finish: No. 8 UNLV edged No. 9 Wyoming, 73-70. The margin never let the night settle, not with Wyoming erasing a halftime deficit and UNLV leaning on a handful of late plays to keep its season moving into the quarterfinals.

UNLV’s Josh Pastner leans on late-game execution in a 73-70 finish

UNLV coach Josh Pastner framed the final minutes as a test his team has seen before. He said UNLV’s late-game execution “really was at a high level, ” pointing to a season shaped by close endings, including a 3-0 mark in overtime. Still, he kept the focus on the players who made the decisive shots, calling it “a players’ game” as UNLV advanced with the 73-70 win.

The game’s arc flipped after halftime. UNLV carried a 13-point lead into the break, helped by a rough shooting half from Wyoming: 12-38 from the field and 2-17 from 3-point range. That shooting line left Wyoming chasing from the start, even before the Cowboys’ second-half push turned the opener into a possession-by-possession finish.

Wyoming did not just cut the deficit; it “came roaring back” and took the lead at one point in the second half. Yet each time the Cowboys threatened to fully take control, UNLV found a way to answer—often through a different source than the one that had carried the first half.

Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and Kimani Hamilton shift the scoring burden late

UNLV star Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn scored 15 points in the first period, then went scoreless in the second. The adjustment was not accidental. Wyoming guard Damarion Dennis “locked” Gibbs-Lawhorn down, forcing UNLV’s scoring load and playmaking to come from elsewhere as the lead shrank and the game tightened.

That shift became a moment for Kimani Hamilton. Pastner highlighted Hamilton alongside Gibbs-Lawhorn as the players who “got the job done. ” Down the stretch, Hamilton delivered a turnaround jumper and made key free throws “in the pressure cooker. ” Two of those free throws came with two seconds left, stretching UNLV’s edge to three points—enough to make the final possession about a miracle rather than a manageable shot.

Gibbs-Lawhorn also described a team built to share responsibility. He said multiple players can take over, and pointed to Hamilton’s minutes load—“more than 30 minutes a game”—as part of what makes UNLV difficult to beat when it is locked in defensively. He also singled out Walter Brown and Tyrin Jones for making “big plays, ” including blocks and steals, during the win.

Tyrin Jones’s sixth block and Utah State next on Thursday

For Wyoming, the comeback effort had a centerpiece in Dennis, who posted a double-double and led the rally that pulled the Cowboys back from a 13-point halftime hole. The closing sequence, though, belonged to UNLV’s defense at the rim and to Tyrin Jones’s timing.

Jones finished with seven points and five rebounds, but it was his shot-blocking that defined the final seconds. His six blocks were tied for the fourth-most in a Mountain West tournament game. The last of those six came with everything on it: UNLV up a point with less than 10 seconds left, Wyoming missed a jumper, then grabbed an offensive rebound. On the putback attempt, Jones rose and blocked Dennis. The moment carried its own tension, with the crowd pleading for a goaltending call, but Jones got to the ball “just in time. ”

Jones explained he was weighing whether to wait for a pump fake, but Dennis “got it up quick. ” He said he was thankful to get the ball “out of the sky, ” and that he trusted his timing to meet the shot at its peak. The block kept UNLV in front long enough for the late free throws that followed, and it closed off the final path for a Wyoming comeback that had already turned the opener into a sprint.

Now, the mountain west basketball tournament moves UNLV forward. The Runnin’ Rebels will meet No. 1 Utah State in the quarterfinals on Thursday. The opening game offered a clear map of how UNLV expects to survive: if one scorer disappears after the first period, another can carry the late possessions—and if the margin narrows to a single point in the final seconds, a block at the rim can become the play that sends the next opponent a scouting note for Thursday.