CKK has to go after this abysmal performance. How do we claw our way back to being down by only 4 and then give up a run like this? I didnt expect a win tonight but it gets more embarrassing each game. It's time to face reality.
After tonight....
- Thread starter lobbybuu
- Start date
How does anyone honestly look at the current roster, see the obvious Senior departures, and goes "Yeah, just a few new guys away from being Top 3 and competing for conference and tournament"...
If you're objectively being honest with yourself and not looking at it from behind Scarlet and Grey glasses, there are maybe 3 guys you want.. Hall, Gilbert, and Nowell. And I'm starting to think Gilbert is gone. So you're staring at 4 new starters and 8-10 new guys, which will all be an over correction to this year's roster...
If you're objectively being honest with yourself and not looking at it from behind Scarlet and Grey glasses, there are maybe 3 guys you want.. Hall, Gilbert, and Nowell. And I'm starting to think Gilbert is gone. So you're staring at 4 new starters and 8-10 new guys, which will all be an over correction to this year's roster...
Basketball is a game of runs. You knew UtAh St was going to turn it up after that run.
Add in the insane amount of dunks they had and they were just toying with us.
Gotta give credit to UtAh State, Mormons have always taken their basketball seriously.
Gilbert is as good as gone. Hall might be too. The only person that I can confidently say will be back next season is Nowell.
Realistically, Nowell is the only one with the potential to be a starter on a good team. Webster could be a good backup since he’s a good shooter, but those two are it for me. Maybe Muoka OR Victor could come back and fill Jones’ bench spot, but not both. If either see a bulk of minutes then we will struggle against non-insurance company universities.
We better get at least 4 solid starters in the portal and 3 solid backups. The rest I don’t care about. Hicks is a good start as a backup. Whaley can be a good clapper if he’s comfortable in that role.
Call me negative if you want, I’m just sharing what my eyes have told me all season. Gilbert isn’t a good player. He looked “solid” against Dantley Walker-type PG’s but he still turns the ball over like his NIL depends on it.
I do not believe that the staff will be able to recruit who/what is needed to win next year. And to make things worse, ask yourself this… if recruiting somehow did go well, do we have the right guy to lead them or will we have a Dave Rice situation all over again? Good recruits without a good coach!
Wow just looked up the score, boat raced by 25 at home. Not a good look.
I don't either which I think makes this year an easy out for everyone. Next years roster wouldn't surprise me to have 10 new faces or more and I don't think any of them will be high level recruits. Rather they'll be cast offs from P5s or elsewhere that they try and plug into whatever lineup they can. There will be a shiny name or 2 like always, but I don't hold out hope that this staff cam coach players up to level capable of winning conference
It wasn’t that close. It was over by the end of the first half. USU could have won by 50. UNLV had zero interest in competing. Looks like they just want the season to end. That’s Rebel pride, something we all can rally around.
Sad and pathetic showing. I hate the culture of losing that Rebel basketball has devolved into. They don't have lots of talent but they have more than enough to keep every game in this conference close if they wanted to. Key word, 'want'.
Results like these are unacceptable. Getting blown out by Utah State at home? If I was the AD, I would be very upset.
Seems like we say this every couple of seasons. Fan apathy is at an all time high.
That effort is a luxury instead of a given is a product of a participation trophy/entitlement culture.
Nowell didnt look super sharp last night either. He got the ball stolen a couple of times and just kind of didnt react and didnt run back on defense. He has a tendency to play too chill.
Idek why Webster was doing all of that apologizing last night. He's one of the main people that misses defensive assignments and gets blown by a good amount of times and then disappears on offense from time to time. And this lack of energy has been around for 10+ games so idk why he took so long to apologize.
After last night, LuRod coming back can be out of the equation. He's out there just doing cardio. I never seen a wing miss shots that badly. It's clanking off the back iron or hella to the side.
OMG yes.
He is very arguably the worst coach the program has seen. He has the worst second-year conference record in the program's history. He has very little in the recruiting pipeline. His staff is uninspiring. He has a defensive system that doesn't work and his offense is equally bad. He's more boring with the press than his father - if that is possible.
On the good side, he's not a criminal, appears to have avoided addition to drugs or alcohol and still shows up.
We are so screwed.
Me and rebswin ran around with guys on our good teams back in early 90s. I don't think I've watched more than 1 or 2 games a year in last few years. I literally could care less anymore. It's not really the suck per se. Programs have ups & downs. A few down years, no biggie. It's the continued wastefulness of our resources. We have things at UNLV basketball that 99% of other programs in the country do not have. And we continually fck it all up. It's like having a family member with a drug problem who is a genius, but yet cannot help themselves.
Cle was a good guy. Bad situation. If we want to go in on worst coaches ever at UNLV we can start with Shoes.
Dave Rice for all the "He was a first time HC" guys out there had like 20 years on the end of a bench as an assistant at several programs in and around the MWC. Kevin had 5 years' experience total coaching and it shows both in recruiting/team/staff assembly and coaching.
Rice was smart enough to put together a really sound staff. He was also smart enough to know that to win at the level that was his personal goal (way loftier than any coach since Tark), it required high level players. So the staff could recruit, they could develop players (would have shown better if there wasn’t such high player turnover - part of the problem), and they could compete at the highest of levels.
I felt like he would have grown more - his last class that we never saw would have been not his BEST class in terms of overall talent, but the most functional class … the pieces fit nicely (finally a true PG) AND they were multi year guys.
I always thought like the three year initial contract and then year to year extensions hurt him. His agent should have gone for the traditional five year contract, it gives more wiggle room for a coach.
Listen, it didn’t work out, he should have never, ever been fired in midseason … but hey, the brain trust was fine with sliding down the greased tube to the bottom to find Menzies …. Hell, I’d have given him that last class that he never saw with a put up or shut up year, meaning NCAAT with advancement. Even if we went that route, which is “normal”, we’d be in a much better place today, imo. Even had he failed in that last season.
But UNLV does things the UNLV way and we continue to be a bigger opponent than any top 10 ranked team. UNLV is a perennial FF school when it comes to dysfunction.
Imo.
Lmao! SEEMS???? Dave would run circles around Kevin. Hence why he should have never been hired in the 1st place
Mid-season culling of the herd wasn't ideal. But to be fair he shoulda gotten the axe before the season started when TKM had Howland lined up. And then blame her for giving in, which she should never have done.
If there was ever an ideal sort of experiment with a great recruiting coach that gets great recruits, yet cannot develop said great recruits. Well I guess Dave Rice is your guy. He reminds me of the guy who took over Inglewood HS with Harold Miner and Bobby Searles and went like 15-15.
Howland used UNLV 2x previously … just as Cronin and Rick used UNLV. UNLV is an easy mark for those sorts of things. And it’s not like Howland finished his career on some blaze of glory, he fizzled and Miss State was very ordinary.
Remember, Cronin had to be laughing inside deeply when he walked out of that office without a deal in place.
Let s be honest, Kruger was a budget hire with strings attached, I m not an insider but there were way more qualified people than him interested. Maybe not sexy, but interested from what I remember. UNLV cute their own legs short. Brutal schedule and the team looks all sorts of dysfunctional
UNLV is good fodder as an early season opponent for good basketball teams to use as a tune up game... Just say'in....
Thats exactly what he was. Des was afraid of how she'd look after TJO left egg on her face. She spent what, all of 3 days before making the decision and was afraid of 2 things- Roster completely vacating after TJO departing (shocker, it still did), and 2- Being the AD who had a legendary coach's son as an assistant in her program and not hiring him while he followed in his father's footsteps with all his experience behind him.
Someone out there needs to spill beans of the call that came from Lon to her (or the boosters that actually run the program) that got Kevin the job and what was promised or offered.
IMO, she wasn't afraid of anything.
She already knew she had the Missouri job and didn't give a sh*t about what she left behind. She was worried about how to sell her house, buy a house in Mo., how her husband would travel back and forth to South Dakota, where her kids would go to school, how she would get all her stuff from Las Vegas to Missouri, where she would get her hair done and who would be her dry cleaner, where were all the shoe stores and then - at the bottom of this list she had to fill a basketball coach position.
She just didn't have enough time in her life to work on getting a coach. That's when Lon walks in and suggests she hires Kevin.
Problems solved!
Except for us. But from Des's perspective - who cares?
Her and Otz had their foot out of the door once they stepped foot on campus. UNLV was a very temporary but necessary pit stop before they hit their target of higher than UNLV. Neither cared about being here. At all.
Not very many people do. And that is one of about 100 major problems UNLV has.
I still think if you hired 50 or so semi-capable UNLV fans with passion to run things it would be in far better shape. Personal pride vs a paycheck. Lots of people there comfy doing very little and collecting their money.
I've always said I'd coach for living expenses... lol
