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Anthony Marshall had 20 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists to lead UNLV to an important victory over San Diego State Wednesday night, with a final score of 82-75. Khem Birch also added 12 points and 5 blocks for a UNLV team that looked its best offensively all season long.
Mike Moser, Anthony Bennett, and Katin Reinhardt all came on early in the game, scoring nine points each, but seemed to fizzle out at the end of the game. That's where Anthony Marshall, Bryce Dejean-Jones, and Khem Birch picked up. The trio essentially rescued the Runnin' Rebels from a scoring drought that looked like it could have been a nail in the coffin by scoring 20 of the final 22 points, mostly off of the offense created by Anthony Marshall's dribble penetration.
That's certainly something to point out. Marshall had zero points in the Rebels 76-71 victory over Air Force. Zero. The offense looked stagnant down the stretch (Luckily Dejean-Jones stepped up and made some key shots) and nobody wanted to attack the zone defense, especially Marshall.
That wasn't the case in UNLV's victory over San Diego State. If Marshall can step up and lead this offense in the final minutes of the game to the point where they're finishing on a high note, then a lot of UNLV's woes in their losses this season should be fixed. Only time will tell if this was a one time thing or if we can expect UNLV to finish out games in the future.
Jamaal Franklin led the way for San Diego State with 27 points, while Winston Shepard and Chase Tapley added 18 and 16 points, respectively. Unfortunately, they didn't get much help outside of that trio, with the rest of the team scoring just 14 points.