inexperienced coach with no head coaching experience whatsoever in his 30s has consequences. If UNLV does not win the Mountain West Tournament, it will be time to be move on from Kevin Kruger.

This all comes back to firing. Dave Rice. Firing Dave Rice still continues to hurt the program today.

Very sad.

This is the biggest concern I have with keeping KK.

1. How could he not bring in a transfer PG to back-up Thomas? ( He's playing 35 min a game - too much for a guy his age and frame, IMO) When Thomas sits our entire offense is in a coma.
2. How can he not have at least two kids who can shoot the ball from the arc? ( UNLV 219th from three ) In today's game you have to be able to use shooting the long ball to your advantage. Having shooters opens everything up.
3. How did he recruit a frontcourt that couldn't rebound? ( UNLV 303rd - that's spitting distance to the worst in the entire country.)

I could go on, but it would be piling on. I don't know if there is a fix for this. It has to do with identifying talent and I'm suspect KK isn't very good at it.

Is he with the team redshirting? If so, potential.
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If MWC refs wouldn't have had such a hard on for Utah State and we would have played like we can against AFA, we would be two games ahead of everyone in First Place. I know I know. Would have, could have, should have. I should be over it.

Pretty decent game for 35 minutes. And then the Rebels just can’t score and close out.

It was embarrassing to get so outrebounded by a soft ass team. Not by a little bit, but dominated. Our front court was so weak on the boards. That and some late missed free throws and no big shot were the difference …

I don’t know how many home losses that is this year. Maybe 5 already? Will probably be at 6 (MWCT) maybe 7 if we can’t handle SDSU at home.

I don’t know, not super upset here … it’s par for the course, this team has been one of the more wildly inconsistent Rebel teams that I can recall with decent highs (Creighton, on road at UNM, etc) and some super lows. But very little consistency. So this kind of fits in as “expected”.

I know people are/were excited by third place. Because everyone has smashed the hell out of each other at the top, I didn’t get too into it as being a solid third, but still, puts you in position to do something. Especially since my Mason/Dixon line for a bad season is whether you play on the first day of the MWCT, lower than 5th place. This isn’t the B10 or ACC, lower than 5th may be our normal parking spot the past 10 years, but it’s wholly unacceptable in my book.

But they still have a chance at that. Can’t exactly pencil losses to SDSU and at UNR, this team is capable. They should handle games outside of those which may make the SDSU and UNR games pivotal (for finishing in the top 5), especially the UNR game because if we lose there and end up tied with them somehow, we’d lose the H2H tiebreaker.

The loss sucked and it puts a bit of dent of finishing in the top 5 … but they can still get to that. (Please spare me from thinking I’m celebrating a top 5 finish as a national championship. Just looking for things to keep interest up).

The primary goal completely changed from “have an opportunity to earn an at large” to “let’s finish in the top 5 of conference” very early in the season and the writing was on the wall after game one.

I don’t think a ton changed with this loss. A little bit, but not all that much.

Haven’t gone over posts, but I’m supposing we are back to firing KK at halftime? If so, give it a few days, after UNLV thwarts AFA, we can get back to best coach ever extension threads.

It will be hard to maintain a run for these reasons.

UNLV: 255th Free Throw %, 216th Fast Break Points, 280th Total rebounds.

Nothing is inevitable, but these numbers will most likely catch up to us.

Standings here

Updated standings as of the Utah state loss about 30 min ago. Who'd a thunk we would be tied for 2nd. Lol

Hopefully we will have our best attendance yet. Upside: it's against Reno. Downside: there is a Knights game and the Rebel game starts at 8:30.

With some really bad loses this season, I am amazed UNLV is currently in third place overall. This has been such an up and down season that at least half of us on this site don't know if we want to replace coach Kruger or bring him back for another year? What is really interesting is that UNLV mostly sucked in the out of conference games, while they have mostly played well in conference (Air Force is a huge exception).

While UNLV has really bad blowout loses to Southern and Air Force, they also lost really close games to Saint Mary (currently in first in WCC) in double OT and a game by 1 to Utah State (first in MWC) due to really poor officiating, and beat Creighton and New Mexico twice.

I have said this entire season that I feel like a ping pong ball in regards to keeping Kruger, I think his team can play him back into another year if they finish the season by going 5-2 during the regular season with a 12-6 in conference record and a 19-11 overall record. Win the first tournament game and they get to 20 wins. This would show an improvement in the team record each of the last 3 years under Kruger.

The following is the UNLV record in conference and out of conference:

2023-2024 7-4 (3rd) 14-9 Kruger

2022-2023 7-11 (7th) 19-13 Kruger
2021-2022 10-8 (5th) 18-14 Kruger
2020-2021 8-10 (6th) 12-15 TJ Otzelberger
2019-2020 12-6 (2nd) 17-15 TJ Otzelberger
2018-2019 11-7 (4th) 17-14 Menzies
2017-2018 8-10 (7th) 20-13 Menzies
2016-2017 4-14 (10th) 11-21 Menzies
2015-2016 8-10 (6th) 18-15 Rice/Simon
2014-2015 8-10 (7th) 18-15 Rice
2013-2014 10-8 (4th) 20-13 Rice

$ 50 a month x 2000 fans = $ 1.2 mil for NIL.

IMO, this is the most direct way a fan can impact our sports. Recruiting has changed forever and a program can either play along or go into obscurity. For us, further into obscurity.

$ 1.2 mil concentrated on Basketball can go quite a long way - especially if these donations can get matched by a wealthy booster. When you look at NIL deals, the top 20 players are completely out of our range. ( $ 500,000 to $ 6 MIL) But there are some pretty nice 3* ballers that are projected to go in the $ 150,000 range. The rest can go to get some good transfers and keep our best.

Just something to think over.

I wanted them to lose watching this game. They have no killer instinct.
8 assists 13 turnovers
No defense except for few plays, just horrible.

This team has talent to win conference and tournament except for 1 huge thing KK. It's that simple, he can't motivated, next week you watch AF comeout thinking they can win, and UNLV sleep walks.

I am pissed, I wanted UNLV to lose, because I want KK to fail, because he can't coach.

Outside of aztecs, they should in in 1st.

124am I am angry with UNLV win, I never thought I feel this way.

UNLV better whip Reno in saturday

My rant is over, pathetic performance.

I really liked the Frontier Casino. They had a fabulous seafood buffet from what I remember. I don’t remember the price They also had a Mexican restaurant that had Cotija tacos for like 3 bucks for 2 gigantic tacos and rice and beans. Cotija is that weird Mexican cheese..

it was also the place where I won Bingo for the first time when I turned 21. I didn’t even know I won. This poor old lady called out Bingo but she was missing a number. My mom looked over and noticed I didn’t fill out a number that had been called. I won 300 dollar coverall. After that I never won again. Shitty f’n game.

I also remember the picketers and being called a scab for the first time. It was a good cause, the prices were god damn cheap.

I still walk to Casino Royale and get me a 3.79 cent hot dog.

Anyways, you guys got a favorite casino with a deal?

Just saw that he was hired as (NFL) Titans OC? This was announced awhile ago but wow paper thin resume for an NFL OC job. Only time he was OC was one season here at unlv.

Just finish the first season very good show half of its Subtitles. It's on HBO,

I ate 5 and my roommate only wanted one. Super Easy. How about you?

Just get it over with..if u think about it.

Reno drop a quad 1 game to NM and loses 2 spots in NET ( 47-49) UNLV doesn't play and drops two spots in NET (87-89).

Go figure.

Playing D3 and NAIA ( Carrol and Bethesda) games are negative events to us. They reduce the total number of games that count and this concentrates the meaning of the games that do count. Since we play more quad 2,3,4 games more emphasis gets put on each one. Since quad 4 games only hurt and don't help, playing fewer games magnifies the harm of a quad 4 loss.

If we play an away game against a Quad 1 team and win, it's worth @ 9 spots up in NET. If we lose is costs us @ 2 spots.

We should try to get home and home games against perennial quad one opponents. If we can't get them to play here then go to their place.

No matter what - no more softies.

Rebs beat those dumb hicks pretty easily. Rob feasts inside and has a career high.

Rebels 72

Puppies: 58

Its okay to root for the Rebels people

Its okay to want them to win this year

Its okay to be happy we are winning

Would KK wins some fans if we Smash UNR on SAT ???

I think this is a game they will be fired up for _ kevin knows what games are important and what games to really focus on

I think we handle them at home- Dunk a lot and have fun -

Am I delusional ??????????

Beat ReNo - it goes a long ways around here

Rebs - 73

Fresno - 65

I think we go 7 and 1. I also think if Hill comes back Healthy We have a good chance to get to the mountain west championship. We are as Talented as anyone in our conference. Some pretty good teams but they have lots of flaws. The mountain west is not as talented as in years past. There are like six Teams that can win the MWC tournament. Playing on our home floor we should have our best shot in years.

KenPom has us a 4 point fav. I think it will be more like 8.

UNV 73 - 65

Staff in on anyone yet? Or somewhat to early to tell?

This list blows goats. UNLV winning a natty doesn’t even make the list?? Yeah ok you know nothing about Vegas. And POKER is number one?! Let’s forget for a moment that poker is not a sport, ahead of Hagler vs Hearns?? Also sorry but the LV Aces is not ahead of Tyson/Holyfield.