By TIM DAHLBERG
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; 6:05 PM

LAS VEGAS -- UNLV has had more than its share of issues with the NCAA over the years, so it wasn't surprising there was some grumbling about town when a team hotter than the clubs on the glittering Las Vegas Strip managed only a No. 7 seed in the Midwest Regional.

The Runnin' Rebels deserved better, but their diplomatic coach and his equally diplomatic point guard weren't going to cry about it in public. Not when their team still has a chance to do what no UNLV team has done in 16 years: win a game in the NCAA tournament.

Not when there's still precious time left in a magical season for both a father and his son.

"Just having him around every day has been a blessing," coach Lon Kruger said.

Him, for those who haven't seen this year's version of the school Tark made famous, is Kevin Kruger, a coach's son if there ever was one. An extension of his father on the court, he's a big reason UNLV is 28-6 this year, the Mountain West tournament champ, and winner of nine of its last 10 games.

It's a feel-good story in a town where not all stories end so well. A son with one year of college ball left uses it to play for his father for the first time in his career, and together the two help resurrect a once-vaunted program.

If that's not good enough, it could get even better. UNLV may be a dark horse in the mind of the NCAA selection committee, but it has the kind of team that could cause problems in the tournament. These Rebels don't run like those in Jerry Tarkanian's day, but they play equally good pressure defense and are adept at taking other teams out of their game plans.

None of it would have happened, though, if not for an inadvertent gift from, of all people, the NCAA. The same guys who stalked Tarkanian to see if he was buying a recruit a soft drink gave the Krugers an unexpected opportunity to spend the season bonding _ and winning.

"It's been a fun ride," Kevin Kruger said. "Being around my family and these guys has just been wonderful."

The younger Kruger was getting ready last summer to return to Arizona State, where he was an All-Pac-10 honorable mention the year before, when a friend told him about another player who had taken advantage of a new NCAA rule to transfer to another school.

The rule is no longer in place, lasting less than a year before being overturned a few months ago. It allowed an athlete who had already graduated with a year's eligibility left to use that eligibility at a different school.

"My first thought was I wanted to play for my dad," Kruger said. "I called him up and asked him if he had heard about it, and he explained it to me."

The decision wasn't easy. Kruger was comfortable at ASU, even with a new coach coming in, and his father hadn't exactly built a powerhouse in two years at UNLV, going 17-14 and 17-13, respectively.

But it was a chance to play for dad, something that he had never done while growing up in different places with Lon Kruger coaching at Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, and with the Atlanta Hawks.

Kevin Kruger wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity.

"It was something I felt I should do or I would look back on it and wonder what might have been," he said.

Kruger doesn't need to wonder anymore. Despite missing a stretch of midseason games with a deep thigh bruise, he made 74 3-pointers, had 30 steals, and averaged five assists a game.

He also took charge on the court for a team that plays better than the sum of its parts.

"Kevin loves to play and he loves to compete. The effort is never a problem with him," Lon Kruger said. "And we're always talking with him about the game plan."

With good reason. The son of a coach wants to be a coach himself, and Kruger studies opposing teams as closely as any member of the coaching staff.

He also studies how his father treats his players.

"He keeps his cool pretty much. He knows guys make mistakes," Kevin Kruger said. "He's not going to degrade you or say something in front of others. He knows we know when we mess up."

Lately, the Rebels haven't messed up much. They came back from being down 13 points early in the second half to beat BYU for the Mountain West title on Saturday, capping a season like UNLV hasn't seen since the Tarkanian days.

Fans responded by coming out in numbers not seen since UNLV won the national title in 1990 and went undefeated in the regular season the next year. This city loves a winner, and nearly 18,000 people rocked out at the last home game to the band playing "Viva Las Vegas."

It could all end, of course, when the Rebels play Georgia Tech on Friday in Chicago. No one is comparing this to the fearsome 1991 UNLV team that dominated everyone before being upset in the national semifinals by Duke.

But this is a team peaking at just the right time. It has the tenacity to play with anyone.

Perhaps more important, it has a father and son who would love nothing better than to spend a few more games together.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org