The short-handed UNLV men’s basketball team will rest when the season’s over — and that won’t be for at least one more day.

The sixth-seeded Rebels beat No. 11 Air Force 68-59 in the first round of the Mountain West tournament Wednesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Senior forward Jalen Hill, who played the full 40 minutes, led four players in double figures for the Rebels (18-14) with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Junior center Jeremiah “Bear” Cherry scored 13 points in 32 minutes, senior guard Jailen Bedford had 13, and junior guard Jaden Henley added 12 in 37 minutes.

“Air Force is a tough cover,” UNLV coach Kevin Kruger said. “But they’re also even tougher to cover when you’ve got multiple guys going 37, 38 minutes-plus. So I couldn’t be more proud of them. Couldn’t be happier for them.

“But they also know that my brain is going to switch here pretty quickly toward prep tomorrow. So they need to spend as much time as they possibly can over here, getting right mentally and getting their body as fresh as possible.”

The Rebels next play No. 3 Utah State (25-6) in the quarterfinals at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

With limited options because of injury, UNLV was down to a six-man rotation. Sophomore guard Brooklyn Hicks and junior forward Isaiah Cottrell were the only players outside of those four double-figure scorers to log more than 20 minutes of playing time.

Senior guard Ethan Taylor led Air Force (4-28) with 23 points.

Here are three takeaways from the win:

1. Bedford stays in game

Air Force opened the game on a 7-0 run, but the Rebels scored the next nine points to take their first lead of the game. Bedford, who had a fast-break layup for UNLV during that stretch, exited the game and was escorted to the locker room after taking a hit to the eye with nearly six minutes left in the half.

Kruger said the injury felt like an all-too-familiar disaster that led him to imagine worst-case scenarios when he saw Bedford walk to the sideline with his eye swollen to the “size of a golf ball.” By the time Bedford went out, Air Force had regained the lead and was beginning to build some cushion at 17-12.

“I was certain (he wasn’t coming back). That’s kind of been par for the course for us for the last four games, where somebody’s gotten hurt pretty early and then guys have had to rally and figure it out,” Kruger said.

But Bedford found a way to return three minutes into the second half with a large bandage over his eye.

“Bedford coming back gave us that 3-point shot firepower, where we knew we’d be able to get some looks and hopefully go on a run of our own,” Kruger said.

Bedford was 3-for-5 on 3-pointers.

2. ‘Bear’ powers run

UNLV trailed 25-21 at halftime after shooting just 24 percent from the field, but pulled away by going on a 19-0 run to take a 60-47 lead with less than four minutes to play.

Kruger said Cherry was “obviously the difference-maker” in that run because he drew so much attention in the paint. He was 4-for-8 from the field and 5-for-9 from the free-throw line.

Cherry recalled a huddle speech from Hill that made the scoring explosion possible.

“It feels good, because they have trust in me,” Cherry said. “Jalen came into a (media timeout) and was telling the whole team, ‘We gotta give him the ball, we gotta give him the ball.’ It really made me feel good and confident.”

3. Opportunities arise

Cottrell also contributed, scoring his only points of the game with a 3-pointer during the run that sealed it for UNLV.

He finished with more than double the playing time he’d received in any game this season,

“(Cottrell) is just a home run of a human,” Kruger said. “So he was ready. Even if he was frustrated (with the previous lack of minutes), it’s not something that carries over.”

In addition to Cottrell’s moment, walk-on guard DeMarion Yap scored his first collegiate points.

The milestone corner 3-pointer came at an important time for the Rebels, ending a 2:13 scoring drought with 1:05 left in the first half.

“It was just great to see (Yap’s) 3 go in, wasn’t it?” Kruger said. “I mean, that was awesome. To see him step in there, for somebody who played on the scout team for five months of the year … and then having him memorize plays and defensive schemes and to go out there and make a really big 3, it was great to see, and I think it got the guys going a little bit.”

Contact Callie Fin at [email protected]. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.