1. Senior E.J. Singler is an important cog for Oregon. He'll no longer lead the team in rebounding now that Arsalan Kazemi is there, but he's the most experienced player on a team which starts Singler, two transfers, and two freshmen. So when he fouled out with 2:34 remaining, and Justin Hawkins' free throws gave UNLV a 1-point lead, it didn't look good. But up stepped freshman Damyean Dotson. Over Oregon's final six possessions, Dotson scored eight points and added an assist and two boards.
2. Damyean Dotson's late game heroics and 18 points on the night means that he'll get the bulk of the accolades, but the game ball should go to senior Carlos Emory. Where it took Dotson 18 shots to score 19 points, Emory scored 16 points off a very efficient nine shots. He also added nine rebounds, three of them on the offensive glass. Oregon scored on two of the three possessions which he extended with offensive boards.
3. One thing we've learned about freshman Katin Reinhardt is that he loves to shoot – he's attempted more shots than any other UNLV player. And when he shoots it's been a bit of a mixed bag. He's made 7-15 2s (47%) and 7-21 3s (33%). Last night the bag was good, at least on threes. Against Oregon he made half of his 3-point attempts, while the rest of the Rebels made 4-22 (18%).
4. A very positive sign for UNLV was 18 assists on 24 made baskets (75% assist rate). This should be an ongoing trend, and through three games the Rebels are 3rd in the nation (of 347 Division I teams) in assist rate.
5. Oregon won 83-79, which sounds like a ridiculous amount of offense. But this was an 81 possession game. It's been two years since Oregon played in a game with this many possessions. It was also solid defense for Oregon. Entering the game UNLV was averaging 1.13 points per possession, whereas the Ducks limited them to just 0.975.
