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Quintrell Thomas #1 of the UNLV Rebels and Kendall Marshall #5 of the North Carolina Tar Heels go after a rebound during the championship game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational at the Orleans Arena November 26, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
LAS VEGAS -- The run began with a layup seven seconds into the second half. Less than 30 seconds after that, UNLV had tied No. 1 North Carolina on Saturday night. Another few moments later, the Runnin' Rebels took the lead for good on a jumper from Chace Stanback, and a Rebels 3-pointer pushed the lead to five.
The crowd at the Orleans Arena, less than four miles from Nevada-Las Vegas' campus, grew louder and more frenzied as the Tar Heels missed shot after shot . And, all the while, North Carolina coach Roy Williams either sat on the bench or stood on the sideline, waiting for his team to respond. It never did.
"I'm not going to call timeouts," Williams said afterward. "This is what it is. We've got to be tough enough to ask the players (to persevere)."
Williams wanted to learn something about his team during Nevada-Las Vegas' surge, which turned out to be a 14-0 run that gave the Rebels control they never relinquished. He wanted his team to learn something, too: about fighting through adversity, about persevering in a hostile, loud environment when the shots aren't falling.
North Carolina's 90-80 loss, its first of the season, offered Williams and his players many lessons. On a larger scale, North Carolina had no answer for Nevada-Las Vegas' initial second-half run - one in which the Rebels proved to be the tougher, meaner team.
The Tar Heels, whose defense failed them, were pushed around on the interior and beaten on the outside. Rebounding, which had been a problem even in convincing victories over Michigan State and South Carolina, became a glaring weakness against the Rebels, who outscored the Tar Heels 20-6 on second-chance points.
The Rebels' surprising victory - which didn't seem too much of a surprise to them - provided other teams a blueprint to playing the Tar Heels. Deploying a physical, harassing defense, Nevada-Las Vegas frustrated Tyler Zeller and John Henson, the two North Carolina post players who had been dominant in previous games.
Zeller, who was in foul trouble most of the game, played 24 minutes and made just one shot. Henson was often pushed out of his position in the post and made just four of his 12 field-goal attempts. "You go back and look at how many times John, or 'Z' or one of our post players turns to try to take it to the basket (and it's) stripped loose," Williams said. "We need to be stronger with the basketball."
And stronger without it, too. Williams said he witnessed too much one-on-one offense Saturday night, and not enough movement without the ball. North Carolina, so good at making the extra pass in previous games, often settled for quick jump shots against the Rebels.
"We didn't have good movement," sophomore point guard Kendall Marshall said. "(We were) kind of stagnant."
He was talking about North Carolina's offense but the same words fit its defense, which appeared soft on the inside and, at times, absent on the perimeter. Nevada-Las Vegas made 13 3-pointers and seemed to come up with one each time North Carolina attempted to rally in the second half.
On many of those 3s, the Tar Heels left the shooter open. Sometimes they rushed toward the 3-point line, a hand up in the air, only to watch the shot sail over them and into the basket. Nevada-Las Vegas attempted 32 3-pointers, and North Carolina's defense was a step slow guarding the perimeter.
Inside a deflated, quiet Tar Heels locker room, Williams' message to his team was simple. Zeller recounted it: "We've got to get better."
Zeller took the defeat as hard as any of his teammates and he blamed himself for North Carolina's suspect post play. In another corner of the locker room, Marshall talked about the defensive breakdowns - some of which he was responsible for - and a North Carolina offense that for the first time this season was stagnant for long stretches.
Those were the tangible reasons for North Carolina's defeat - the ones that could be found on a stat sheet. But they weren't the only reasons. The Tar Heels, who will host Wisconsin on Wednesday in a Big Ten/ACC Challenge matchup before traveling to No. 2 Kentucky on Saturday, were missing something against Nevada-Las Vegas - a certain kind of energy.
The Rebels played as if they wanted the victory more, and they took it without too much of a fight.
"We looked sluggish in the first half," junior guard Dexter Strickland said. "We didn't come to play in the second half, and I think it's a wake-up call. (We're) lucky it's our first loss at the beginning of the season.
"We'll just learn from it."
That's Williams' hope, that his team will emerge from Las Vegas a wiser, tougher group. The Tar Heels' first loss came with no shortage of lessons.
