Can't beat Vegas for excitement

LAS VEGAS — Do we have to go to Denver?

This week the Mile High city will be hard-pressed to match the excitement of Las Vegas, and I'm not talking about all the lights and shows. Saturday's BYU-UNLV regular-season MWC finale had plenty of fireworks. This place never ceases to amaze. It's a circus — a salad bar of entertainment.

At the top of discussions is the Rafael Araujo non-punch that looked sort of like a punch on Rebel guard Jerel Blassingame in the Cougars' one-point win over the Rebels in the Thomas & Mack Center.

But back to that later.

This place always has sideshows. And they're all fun. Wrench-heads took over this place over the weekend, making pit stops for the NASCAR event. Outside the Thomas & Mack there were signs asking Rebel fans to honk if they like George Karl for the new hire to replace Charlie Spoonhour. Inside, fans booed university president Carol Harter just before Rebel seniors were honored before tipoff. Dr. Harter's been courting Lon Kruger as a new hire.

Rebel fans want a return of the Runnin' Rebs of old. Anything former coach Jerry Tarkanian does makes news in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Review Journal has a feature called "Leftovers" and on Saturday the newspaper ran a misstatement by Tarkanian from a Thursday ritual honoring him at Fresno's Save Mart Center. It read: "I want to thank everybody for the support I received in my time coaching here at UNL . . . I'm sorry — Fresno State."

Araujo, who could be named the MWC's most valuable player this week, received an apology from his own head coach en route to Las Vegas this weekend when Steve Cleveland was quoted as saying his player didn't deserve MVP honors. The quote upset the big guy and hurt his feelings.

Cleveland reacted by making a correction and explained Saturday he did indeed believe Araujo was the league's MVP. "He's going to be the highest player picked in the draft from the league, he draws double teams and all kinds of attention from everybody and he's led the conference in scoring and rebounding for parts of the whole season."

What Cleveland originally intended was to state his philosophy that MVPs should come from a team that is conference champion — in this case Air Force, although his own Travis Hansen did not get that honor last year when BYU tied for the title.

Cleveland and Araujo buried the issue on this trip. "(Araujo) is OK with everything," teammate Luiz Lemes said.