Kevin
- Thread starter BornRebelRed
- Start date
I’ve complained about that aspect from day one. Zero imagination, ingenuity and even less flexibility.
I’m sorry but I’m sick and tired of Kevin embarrassing us. Embarrassing Las Vegas. Embarrassing himself. Please resign.
We will get the same line out of CKK. The guys never gave up and they played hard. Get back home, look at the tape and get back to work.
It’s not so much the losing as it is the style of play. And the lack of passion. He’s a scoop of vanilla topped with mayo and sprinkled with marshmallows. Just, no.
Love it. Post game interview: “ tough environment “ he says…. Looked like about 3 thousand there. Such an idiot..
Been a Rebel fan since before Tark. I keep pulling for Kevin but tonight was the last straw. I, would fire him now and go with an assistant for the rest of this wasted season. Start looking for the coach of our future.
Other KK years we had some talent and you could maybe see them winning the mwc tourney if things broke right. This year all teams double DJ and we get very few easy hoops. Add bad defense and worse rebounding and we are in bottom 4 in the conference from what it seems to me. No shot in mwc tourney unless Whaley comes back and is real good.
But what can he say?
"I can't recruit?" "Those I do recruit are soft?" "Whiting is injured?"
There are a number of events & people that can have fingers pointed at to attribute the downfall of Rebel basketball to but none come close to the midseason firing of Dave Rice. No coach wants to be here. That decision by Tina absolutely wrecked any remaining hope of respectability within coaching circles. Somehow that decision has to be exorcised.
Man oh man do I long for the days of David Rice when we complained about his inability to bring in a point guard but at least we competed and even beat some good (Tarheels) teams. Bringing back Dave Rice might be the only thing to lift the cloud over Running Rebel basketball because right now our last best chance for relevancy lies with football and all resources must be put to work there.
Just another disgruntled fan.
Man oh man do I long for the days of David Rice when we complained about his inability to bring in a point guard but at least we competed and even beat some good (Tarheels) teams. Bringing back Dave Rice might be the only thing to lift the cloud over Running Rebel basketball because right now our last best chance for relevancy lies with football and all resources must be put to work there.
Just another disgruntled fan.
There was such low interest with UNLV as an opponent that they offered 2 dollar tickets.
Rice in his first year has SLCCC at number 4 in the nation in the last poll, though they will drop with some losses recently. He was done wrong here and I don’t think he would even come back, but comparing we we are to then is just depressing.
Agree. After his first two years, there were some struggles. Conference was always a challenge, OOC was better. In year 5, recruiting, on paper, was really good but things went sideways and then the huge error in a MIDSEASON firing based upon performance. If that’s the way to do it, Menzies should have been fired mid year of season three. KK after OOC last season. KK right now.
It’s the wrong way to do things and it absolutely set us back. You get viewed as a Mickey Mouse, knee jerk institution with non professionals running the show. And coaching circles are small. Oh, sure, coaches like Cronin and Howland will use the name UNLV to sweeten the pot elsewhere … that’s what happens when you are minor league and act that way continually.
I think LK made the NCAAT 4 of 7 years, Rice 2 of five and between them, I believe we made it 4 of 5 years. Crowds were decent to good, recruiting ramped up, rivalries were hot, we gained national attention whether we lived up to the hype or not. And we tossed all of that into a flaming dumpster and in return, we got uncompetitive, flavorless basketball saturated in apathy. Our fans don’t care. They broke the fanbase with such bad moves.
Many of us called it out at it was happening, but short sighted overemotional fans can’t see the forest through the trees, either. The same types will be calling for Kevin to resign midseason or be fired midseason. And that is a mistake. Handle it at the end of the season, not now.
IMO, we look back and romanticize Dave.
He was here 5 years and had a worse record - year over year - each year he was here. He did make the NCAAT his first two years but fell off after that.
The reason we have fond memories is even that was better than now.
As I've said before we need to follow the Odom, Mullen hiring tactic of going after previously successful coaches who are currently out of the game and want to come back. This eliminates the buyout issue and we know the coach has at least had success somewhere. As far as attracting a coach, I believe the best place to make a comeback is to a program that has failed miserably but has had past success. That us us. Any coach who comes here and gets to the Tourney a couple of years in a row will be a hot commodity. That is the selling point. " Come here, have success and go to a huge job" Then we do it again with buyout $$.
I think Harper is a smart guy. If he can show a new coach he has the NIL $$ he can get a coach. A good one. The real issue is can we get the NIL funds to get the players.
He was here 5 years and had a worse record - year over year - each year he was here. He did make the NCAAT his first two years but fell off after that.
The reason we have fond memories is even that was better than now.
As I've said before we need to follow the Odom, Mullen hiring tactic of going after previously successful coaches who are currently out of the game and want to come back. This eliminates the buyout issue and we know the coach has at least had success somewhere. As far as attracting a coach, I believe the best place to make a comeback is to a program that has failed miserably but has had past success. That us us. Any coach who comes here and gets to the Tourney a couple of years in a row will be a hot commodity. That is the selling point. " Come here, have success and go to a huge job" Then we do it again with buyout $$.
I think Harper is a smart guy. If he can show a new coach he has the NIL $$ he can get a coach. A good one. The real issue is can we get the NIL funds to get the players.
Probably a little bit of that. But if you snapshot crowds, interest … in spite of records and such, there’s a monumental difference. Of course, back then you had high hopes and frustrations ran high. Now we have no hopes and people just don’t care anymore. Apathy is the worst possible thing. It’s killed this program and apathy is at a high point.
I slept well last night. I don’t like that. We got smoked. It should bother me more than it does. I’d rather aim high and fall short than aim low and come near the target. If I ain’t feeling, good or bad, it’s not really worth it
The only fitting song for this season! https://www.google.com/search?clien...ate=ive&vld=cid:ad13a64c,vid:je4wrRVExBY,st:0
"But if you snapshot crowds, interest … in spite of records and such, there’s a monumental difference."
You lose 750 fans to apathy. Doesn't sound like much until you lose 750 fans a year for 10 years. 7500 is about the difference from what we have now to what we had then.
and its not just losing current paying fans directly.. Students who will be alumni aren't likely to have good memories of the basketball program and so even if the program hires a good coach and starts winning, those fans might not invest in season tickets for their family. They arent donating the the athletic fund, etc.. Winning cures some things, but long term fan support is going to need to have alot of work to rebuild what has been lost in the past 12 years.
i dont think too much. Just a commitment by UNLV. They hire a Will Wade or maybe Bob Huggins(71 years old) and i think it would reenergize the fan base instantly . Vegas will never and has never supported not winning. Way too many things to do.
They also bounced back if you recall with his last season. And then things went really south midseason. Firing, injuries, borrowing a bell boy to fill out the roster for the MWCT.
But the season had interest with McCaw and Derrick Jones and Zimm and Ben, etc. A lot of interest and it ticked up beating Indiana and Oregon.
See, that’s the thing. At least they beat real teams to keep your hopes up. We have no hope and we know we have no hope.
We have a lot of hope. That is we have a lot of hope that Kruger is gone and they hire a real coach! I even bought into the Kool-Aid and went to the NIT playoffs at the T&M last year, but this entire year has become dead man walking with the coaching and attitude of the team.
Part of it was we had nba and nba fringe players so you knew you had a chance. When they played well they looked every part of top 20. When they didn’t, they looked near 100. Conference play was maddening. They competed, but they were supposed to win those games, not compete.
By the same token, if this current squad lost on the road to Boise, CSU and USU, whoever the teams were, by 5 points combined, we’d be disappointed but talking about how close we are, almost there. … for the previous team it was fire the coach. There is a Grand Canyon sized gap between expectations/acceptability of the two eras. Some felt Rice needed more time to figure it out, others said he’d never figure out and I understand both sides of that. I dont know anybody that thinks Kruger would figure it out with time. Because he’s shown zero substance in that regard. At least Rice had recruiting and some huge national wins, he gave glimpses of the upside. They were able to run, were athletic and when on, very fun to watch. Was it enough? Obviously not. But there was much more evidence back then than now.
Not sure where we go from here. If football was still producing two wins per season we’d all likely be pushing for Harp to find $2-3M for a quality HC with a winning record. As it is now I don’t want spending on MBB to cost us in football, which is our only path to long-term sustainability. I guess Harp looks for a diamond in the rough of coaches commanding what we’re paying CKK today. Hope I’m wrong but I don’t see the depth in the community to bring in donors for both football and basketball.
There is no way that we know for sure this is the case!
Everyone always says this tired old narrative.
He has figured out how to hire football coaches and I believe he can find the right former HC for hoops and whoever that might be, he won’t cost as much as many of the Rebel-net naysayers think!
I THINK KEVIN HAD BETTER ASST COACHES HIS 1ST 2 years. Hartman and Buckley were better than what we have now. Fans want the team to at least play hard. WE DON'T!. MENZIES TEAMS WERE MORE FUN.
There is no way that anyone here knows this for sure!
Everyone always quotes this tired money narrative.
Harper has hired 2 good coaches in football and I bet he can find the right former hoops HC without breaking the bank!
Let’s see what happens come March!
