Las Vegas » Rolling sevens is rarely a good thing in this town, the BYU Cougars learned Saturday -- and not just because they lost for the seventh straight time to the UNLV Rebels at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Like the gambler who rolls the unlucky dice combination at the craps table early to pretty much spoil the rest of the night, the Cougars fell way behind the Rebels -- way, way behind -- and couldn't come close to breaking even. Behind a career-high 33 points by Tre'Von Willis, UNLV bombarded BYU 88-74 to move into a tie with the Cougars for the Mountain West Conference lead.

"Obviously, they were shooting the ball really well. They kept making three after three after three [in the first half]," said BYU guard Jimmer Fredette. "They were making extra passes and putting pressure on us, and playing good defense. They just got off to a huge, huge lead, and we couldn't come back from it."

Blowing their chance -- did they really have one? -- to seize control of the MWC race, the No. 12 Cougars fell to 7-2 in league play, 22-3 overall, and lost a bit of their swagger here in front of a sellout crowd of 18,557 crazed fans. The Rebels (19-4) are also 7-2.

"You gotta give a lot of credit to UNLV," said BYU coach Dave Rose. "They are playing really well right now. That might be the hottest team in the league."

For the first 15 minutes of Saturday's game, the Rebels were the hottest team in the universe. They jumped to a quick 20-4 lead, and just when it looked like the Cougars were going to regroup, the Rebels made it rain three-pointers again, even as it poured outside the T&M virtually nonstop the entire day.

"They did a great job of putting it on us right in the first half, and we couldn't get back," Fredette said.

After Charles Abouo's three-pointer seemingly righted the Cougar ship, the Rebels made three-pointers on four straight possessions, the last two by a sub named Matt Shaw, to push their lead to 36-13.

After a rare empty possession, they scored on their next five, and led by 29 points with 5:16 left in the first half.

"They didn't leave any bullets in the chamber," said BYU's Jonathan Tavernari.

And the Cougars were so riddled with holes, nothing else mattered.

In scoring 56 points in the first half, the Rebels made nine of 13 three-point attempts and shot 64.5 percent from the field.

"We didn't do a good job of containing them. But with that being said, we gotta give them all the credit, because they were making tough shots," Tavernari said. "Rebounding, penetration, they were all over the floor, and we weren't. So that was the difference in the game."

The Cougars took some pride in saying they won the second half (40-32), but that's like saying you left Las Vegas with enough money left for gas.

At least BYU opened the second half much better than they did the first, cutting the 22-point halftime deficit to 13, 61-48, on a Tyler Haws three-pointer with 14:33 remaining. But the Rebels scored the next seven points -- the crowd was whipped into a frenzy during that stretch when 240-pound Brice Massamba laid out Fredette at halfcourt with a killer, questionable pick -- and BYU would come no closer.

"They always play physical, no matter what," said Fredette, who was just 4-for-15 from the field. "A lot of teams try to play physical. It is definitely different at UNLV. They are always playing really, really physical, and that made it tougher."

Aside from the spark off the bench from Tavernari, the only other bright spots for BYU were the relatively low number of turnovers, 11, and its 19-for-22 free-throw shooting.

Willis got his points on 11-for-20 shooting; he played 38 minutes, including the final few minutes when the game had long since been decided -- but all that did was drive down his shooting percentage.

"We got a week off now," Rose said. "We will use the week to try to get better, and look forward to the challenge next Saturday. But this is a long process, and we are right in the middle of it. We are still in good shape, we are in a good spot, we got to recover from this, and move forward."