It?s come to this for UNLV Runnin? Rebels basketball, fans at the Thomas & Mack Center cheering vigorously when the Rebels make their first 3-pointer and extend their NCAA-leading streak of making at least one in every game since the line was implemented in 1986.
Fans of a proud program with a national championship banner in the rafters now clinging to an obscure record, like a life preserver in a roiling sea, while their team is getting drilled by 19 in the first half in a half-empty arena.
And soon they won?t even have that. Oh, the Rebs could keep making 3s. But No. 5-ranked Kentucky is now tied with them at 992 straight and, you figure, will play a few more games in March.
They have to cheer for something, though. It?s hard to imagine another college basketball program of such pedigree sliding into mediocrity so quickly, so dramatically, so precipitously. Consider: The Rebels have had more head coaches (four) in the last 12 months than returning players (three).
?Obviously it?s not the UNLV program that we?re used to,? said San Diego State senior Dakarai Allen, whose Aztecs play the Rebels at Thomas & Mack on Tuesday night (7 p.m., ESPN3). ?But we can?t say much, because we?re not used to the situation we?re in right now, either.?
Who would?ve thunk it: SDSU (10-7, 2-3) and UNLV (9-9, 2-3) meeting in men?s basketball, both with losing conference records ? the first time that?s happened in 12 years.
The game originally was slated for either ESPNU on real TV or ESPN3 on the Internet. The network chose the latter.
The conference records are identical. Their plights are not. One is a bumpy patch with a talented roster and stable, veteran coaching staff. The other is a dumpster fire, a complete rebuild.
Folks thought the Rebels struck bottom a year ago, when a roster of five-star recruits and two 2016 NBA Draft picks opened the Mountain West 0-3 under coach Dave Rice. Athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy panicked and fired him, then replaced him not with one of the veteran assistants on the staff ? including one who had been a UNLV head coach before ? but Todd Simon, who was a year removed from patrolling a high school sideline.
Then Simon was let go after the season, and Kunzer-Murphy hired Chris Beard, the flavor of the month after going 30-5 at Little Rock. Beard couldn?t officially begin as coach until the university?s Board of Regents approved his contract, which it didn?t until April 8.
A week later, Beard swallowed and informed UNLV he was accepting the recently vacated job at Texas Tech. Instead UNLV hired Marvin Menzies, a former Aztecs and Rebels assistant who had taken New Mexico State to the NCAA Tournament multiple times.
By then, the Rebels roster consisted of ? three dudes.
One, junior forward Dwayne Morgan, averaged 5.5 points last season and has since been lost for the year with hip and shoulder injuries. One, guard Jalen Poyser, averaged 5.4 points last season. The other, senior forward Tyrell Green, played 39 total minutes in eight games.
The rest saw the dumpster smoldering and transferred or turned pro.
College basketball stat guru Ken Pomeroy tracks what he calls ?minutes continuity? to measure how much of a roster returns from the previous season. UNLV is at 13.9 percent, which ranks 349th out of 351 Division I teams. (SDSU is at 58.9 percent, or 99th nationally.)
?It?s immensely difficult,? SDSU coach Steve Fisher said Monday of Menzies? overnight reconstruction. ?You say: ?How can we do it both for long-term gains but not to sell out on the season?? He brought in a couple fifth-year seniors, a junior college player or two, but he didn?t sell his soul to win this year. He got enough guys who have toughness and heart. He?s been wise how he?s put this year?s team together.?
In all, Menzies has 12 newcomers from five states and two foreign countries (Mali and Serbia), and only one from the Pacific time zone. Christian Jones is a graduate transfer from St. John?s, Uche Ofoegbu a graduate transfer from USF. Kris Clyburn, Larry Bush and Jovan Mooring are JC transfers.
To make matters worse, Rice?s parting gift was one of the nation?s toughest nonconference schedules, with games against Duke, Kansas and Oregon.
The Duke game was particularly poignant and painful, a rematch of the epic 1990 and 1991 NCAA finals in the first basketball game at Las Vegas? new T-Mobile Arena. The Rebels trailed 20-3 and lost 94-45.
The low point, though, came a month later against Boise State before an announced crowd of 8,872 at 18,000-seat Thomas & Mack that looked closer to 5,000. They trailed 15-4, 31-9 and 59-27 before losing by 18.
?Want to apologize for that effort,? Menzies opened his post-game news conference. ?I?m not accustomed to that. It threw me for a loop. I?m not sure why. We will play harder and more tenacious than that. We will make sure of that. It felt helpless. They just beat us up.?
Menzies promised it wouldn?t happened again and, to his credit, it hasn?t. The Rebels lost their next game, at Utah State, but they played harder. He shuffled the starting lineup for their most recent game at New Mexico, one of the toughest venues in a conference full of them, and they did this: won.
?You could see that Marvin had a way of calling them out publically,? Fisher said of his protege, ?but in private I?m sure he wrapped his arms around them the right way to get them to buy into what he wanted to do. They played with a little more pep in their step, and the guys who didn?t start didn?t pout and they still played (hard), and they were better.?
Fisher is pulling for him, and not just because Menzies was his first outside hire after coming to SDSU in 1999 and was instrumental in turning around the program with early recruits like Randy Holcomb, Tony Bland and Brandon Heath. A UNLV with four coaches in four months, a UNLV with three returning players, a UNLV picked to eighth in the preseason media poll is great fodder for rival fans but not so great for the Mountain West.
?You absolutely want Vegas to be good, yes, without question,? Fisher said. ?They are the No. 1 brand in our league. They?ve won a national championship. They?ve got a pedigree. If they?re good, it helps all of us. Now, I don?t want them to be better than us, but I want them to be good and I believe with all my heart that they will be.?
Fans of a proud program with a national championship banner in the rafters now clinging to an obscure record, like a life preserver in a roiling sea, while their team is getting drilled by 19 in the first half in a half-empty arena.
And soon they won?t even have that. Oh, the Rebs could keep making 3s. But No. 5-ranked Kentucky is now tied with them at 992 straight and, you figure, will play a few more games in March.
They have to cheer for something, though. It?s hard to imagine another college basketball program of such pedigree sliding into mediocrity so quickly, so dramatically, so precipitously. Consider: The Rebels have had more head coaches (four) in the last 12 months than returning players (three).
?Obviously it?s not the UNLV program that we?re used to,? said San Diego State senior Dakarai Allen, whose Aztecs play the Rebels at Thomas & Mack on Tuesday night (7 p.m., ESPN3). ?But we can?t say much, because we?re not used to the situation we?re in right now, either.?
Who would?ve thunk it: SDSU (10-7, 2-3) and UNLV (9-9, 2-3) meeting in men?s basketball, both with losing conference records ? the first time that?s happened in 12 years.
The game originally was slated for either ESPNU on real TV or ESPN3 on the Internet. The network chose the latter.
The conference records are identical. Their plights are not. One is a bumpy patch with a talented roster and stable, veteran coaching staff. The other is a dumpster fire, a complete rebuild.
Folks thought the Rebels struck bottom a year ago, when a roster of five-star recruits and two 2016 NBA Draft picks opened the Mountain West 0-3 under coach Dave Rice. Athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy panicked and fired him, then replaced him not with one of the veteran assistants on the staff ? including one who had been a UNLV head coach before ? but Todd Simon, who was a year removed from patrolling a high school sideline.
Then Simon was let go after the season, and Kunzer-Murphy hired Chris Beard, the flavor of the month after going 30-5 at Little Rock. Beard couldn?t officially begin as coach until the university?s Board of Regents approved his contract, which it didn?t until April 8.
A week later, Beard swallowed and informed UNLV he was accepting the recently vacated job at Texas Tech. Instead UNLV hired Marvin Menzies, a former Aztecs and Rebels assistant who had taken New Mexico State to the NCAA Tournament multiple times.
By then, the Rebels roster consisted of ? three dudes.
One, junior forward Dwayne Morgan, averaged 5.5 points last season and has since been lost for the year with hip and shoulder injuries. One, guard Jalen Poyser, averaged 5.4 points last season. The other, senior forward Tyrell Green, played 39 total minutes in eight games.
The rest saw the dumpster smoldering and transferred or turned pro.
College basketball stat guru Ken Pomeroy tracks what he calls ?minutes continuity? to measure how much of a roster returns from the previous season. UNLV is at 13.9 percent, which ranks 349th out of 351 Division I teams. (SDSU is at 58.9 percent, or 99th nationally.)
?It?s immensely difficult,? SDSU coach Steve Fisher said Monday of Menzies? overnight reconstruction. ?You say: ?How can we do it both for long-term gains but not to sell out on the season?? He brought in a couple fifth-year seniors, a junior college player or two, but he didn?t sell his soul to win this year. He got enough guys who have toughness and heart. He?s been wise how he?s put this year?s team together.?
In all, Menzies has 12 newcomers from five states and two foreign countries (Mali and Serbia), and only one from the Pacific time zone. Christian Jones is a graduate transfer from St. John?s, Uche Ofoegbu a graduate transfer from USF. Kris Clyburn, Larry Bush and Jovan Mooring are JC transfers.
To make matters worse, Rice?s parting gift was one of the nation?s toughest nonconference schedules, with games against Duke, Kansas and Oregon.
The Duke game was particularly poignant and painful, a rematch of the epic 1990 and 1991 NCAA finals in the first basketball game at Las Vegas? new T-Mobile Arena. The Rebels trailed 20-3 and lost 94-45.
The low point, though, came a month later against Boise State before an announced crowd of 8,872 at 18,000-seat Thomas & Mack that looked closer to 5,000. They trailed 15-4, 31-9 and 59-27 before losing by 18.
?Want to apologize for that effort,? Menzies opened his post-game news conference. ?I?m not accustomed to that. It threw me for a loop. I?m not sure why. We will play harder and more tenacious than that. We will make sure of that. It felt helpless. They just beat us up.?
Menzies promised it wouldn?t happened again and, to his credit, it hasn?t. The Rebels lost their next game, at Utah State, but they played harder. He shuffled the starting lineup for their most recent game at New Mexico, one of the toughest venues in a conference full of them, and they did this: won.
?You could see that Marvin had a way of calling them out publically,? Fisher said of his protege, ?but in private I?m sure he wrapped his arms around them the right way to get them to buy into what he wanted to do. They played with a little more pep in their step, and the guys who didn?t start didn?t pout and they still played (hard), and they were better.?
Fisher is pulling for him, and not just because Menzies was his first outside hire after coming to SDSU in 1999 and was instrumental in turning around the program with early recruits like Randy Holcomb, Tony Bland and Brandon Heath. A UNLV with four coaches in four months, a UNLV with three returning players, a UNLV picked to eighth in the preseason media poll is great fodder for rival fans but not so great for the Mountain West.
?You absolutely want Vegas to be good, yes, without question,? Fisher said. ?They are the No. 1 brand in our league. They?ve won a national championship. They?ve got a pedigree. If they?re good, it helps all of us. Now, I don?t want them to be better than us, but I want them to be good and I believe with all my heart that they will be.?
