Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun

UNLV looks to depth to replace injured star forward Mike Moser KSNV reports that UNLV men's basketball players will need to step up to make-up for Mike Moser's injury, Dec. 12.

No. 20 UNLV (7-1) has one eligible player who hasn’t played a minute this season. That will change Thursday night when the Rebels play La Verne.

One game ahead of sophomore Khem Birch's addition to the lineup, freshman point guard Daquan Cook will make his Rebels debut in Orleans Arena in the 7 p.m. game on VegasTV.

“He’ll definitely play in the game and I would expect him to play quality minutes,” UNLV coach Dave Rice said.

The original plan was for Cook to redshirt this season along with Bishop Gorman alum Demetris Morant. Rice announced early in the year that the team decided against that and would use Cook this year. However, he has yet to see the floor.

La Verne, a Division III school from the Los Angeles area, offers a good opportunity to get Cook some minutes and see how the undersized guard from Baltimore performs. Rice has often said how impressed he is with Cook, who just turned 18 on Dec. 1, in practice.

“We wouldn’t have made the decision to make him available if I didn’t have a plan to utilize him throughout the season,” Rice said. “Every game will be different. It will be a feel thing based on matchups and other factors.”

This is the first game UNLV will play without Moser because of his dislocated elbow injury, and it’s also the first of two debuts in back-to-back games. The first semester ends this week so on Monday when the Rebels travel to UTEP, Birch, the 6-foot-9 sophomore transfer, will join them. His home debut will be two days later when UNLV hosts Northern Iowa at the Thomas & Mack Center.

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Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.