Oregon
- Thread starter rebel lover
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I think you might have spoke to soon we are down by 17 now, 5 minutes into the 2nd half, This is going to be a long year!
Beat by 49 vs Duke...Only 21 vs Oregon. Maybe they can stay within 15 or so vs Kansas. It's improvement.
Actually, The Rebels played a very competitive half despite shooting in the 25% range and being seriously out-rebounded. Expecting them to be able to keep it close for another 20 minutes was unrealistic.
I really hope we don't see a lot of finger-pointing posts after each of these blow-outs to NC contenders. Come March, there's every reason to believe that Duke & Kansas may be #1 seeds and Oregon will be close behind. Expecting our rag-tag bunch to compete at that level is ridiculous.
They played hard, and they competed til' the final buzzer. That's all I ask right now. Let's hope that these beat-downs will have some positive effect as the season progresses.
Go Rebels!
Actually, The Rebels played a very competitive half despite shooting in the 25% range and being seriously out-rebounded. Expecting them to be able to keep it close for another 20 minutes was unrealistic.
I really hope we don't see a lot of finger-pointing posts after each of these blow-outs to NC contenders. Come March, there's every reason to believe that Duke & Kansas may be #1 seeds and Oregon will be close behind. Expecting our rag-tag bunch to compete at that level is ridiculous.
They played hard, and they competed til' the final buzzer. That's all I ask right now. Let's hope that these beat-downs will have some positive effect as the season progresses.
Go Rebels!
Some dude at the game called me an a$$hole. That's about the only thing I remember from last night. I'll count it as a win, cause I've never attended a rebel loss.
Fewer overall turnovers for sure. But they jam packed them all - the same types of turnovers as in the Duke game - into the first 6 or 7 minutes of the second half and the game went from within reach to a blowout in that span.
That poster did not speak too soon. I think the game was encouraging. It was a road game against a ranked opponent, and Oregon is better than anybody in our conference.
We're not playing in the Pac-12. Our conference games will all be easier than this one. If we can compete in this game (outside of that run to start the second half), it's encouraging. And our team should only get better before conference play starts.
In any case, when have we not had a long year recently? Seems like every year our team struggles and people wanted Rice fired for how many years in a row?
It kind of shows the massive plunge with the program when some fans are encouraged in a 20 point beatdown. I guess it's better than 50, though.
I said, in a previous thread, that blame should not be laid at the feet of Marvin Menzies. He has been enormously handicapped by the mass-exodus of players, coupled with the very late start in filling-out the roster.
The "massive plunge" of the program is 100% on the AD. with an assist from the BOR and some influential boosters. But yes, I can find encouragement in the belief that these guys will benefit from lessons learned during this brutal stretch of games.
We're going to have to endure one more of these blood-baths before we see just where we stand vs the MWC...Patience...
Go Rebels!
I'm not in disagreement where blame should be placed and where it shouldn't be placed. That there's zero accountability for the plunge is a little bit aggravating. It's like A Christmas card from UNLV saying "you'll eat this *^+*% sandwich and enjoy it".I said, in a previous thread, that blame should not be laid at the feet of Marvin Menzies. He has been enormously handicapped by the mass-exodus of players, coupled with the very late start in filling-out the roster.
The "massive plunge" of the program is 100% on the AD. with an assist from the BOR and some influential boosters. But yes, I can find encouragement in the belief that these guys will benefit from lessons learned during this brutal stretch of games.
We're going to have to endure one more of these blood-baths before we see just where we stand vs the MWC...Patience...
Go Rebels!
A massive plunge from what? We didn't suddenly become bad overnight. The team was bad when Rice was still coaching which is why so many people wanted him fired.
Losing by 20 on the road to a ranked team isn't a big deal IMO, especially with the game being so close at the half. We know the team isn't good so we shouldn't act like we were expecting something much better. I think Oregon would easily win our conference with several victories of 20 points or more.
The same Oregon squad who was better last year and we beat them by double digits?
To say there hasn't been a plunge in potential, and so far results, is being ignorant. Granted, we may have underachieved once conference season hit, but we still had potential and played well at times. Well enough that people took notice. And yes, they took notice of the underachievement as well. I guess the biggest difference has been not being able to compete at all except against sub 250 teams. Anything better than that, UNLV struggles.
UNLV under Rice was very inconsistent. Maddeningly inconsistent. But there were peaks and valleys. So far, pretty much as everyone expected. We are not a good team. And the main problem there is we are consistently not a good team. Will that change in conference play? I hope so, especially with it being a one bid league since mid November. Anybody can win this league it is so bad. Why not us?
The fans are showing it as well by dressing up in hard plastic red clothing by the many, many thousands.
It sucks but it is what it is. At some point, I'm guessing year three, maybe even with really good recruiting next season, UNLV can start to be competitive. Right now, they aren't.
But I'm of the thought process that when you are a struggling program, you should hit the ground running and improve. You shouldn't take steps back. This program is at an SJSU level, maybe a bit higher.
And to be clear, exactly ZERO of this is Menzies fault. He inherited a mess. But what was there in mid-January wasn't there come May. Somewhere, somehow, some team damage control needed to take place; there was no coach in place for months, so those responsibilities fall elsewhere. They were completely ignored. You were going to have casualties no matter what, it's rare that you come out of it unscathed. But man, they lit a fire, poured gasoline on it and walked away. And now they leave Menzies to clean it up.
You can't find a messier transition. That's what happens when you don't control a situation. It slipped out of their hands like a live, wet fish. Messy transitions will manifest as an ugly present time. Now we just have to get through this mess, cross our fingers and hope that MM's end product in a few years is good enough. Because if we keep repeating this same garbage, we may as well start playing wherever U San Fran plays.
I don't agree with your assessment that the team was as good as you think it was under Rice. I thought you might bring up last year vs. Oregon. That game was played at the MGM so it was almost a home game for us. I'm not convinced we beat them at their place if that game was in Oregon. It's not like we did well against the rest of the Pac-12 either with double digit losses to Arizona State, Arizona, and a 2 point loss to UCLA (who had a very disappointing season).
Last year the team did start off better than usual and some of us got excited because they looked better than the previous two teams. They beat Indiana. They started 7-1 but then finished the rest of the season 11-14 in the last 25 games and 8-10 in conference play. If we do much worse than that this season then I'll admit there was a massive plunge. I'm really still waiting to see what happens in conference play.
You keep mentioning potential but that doesn't mean anything to me with Rice as the head coach. His teams had so many other issues that it didn't matter. It really felt like the program was going nowhere with him. Every year I'd see a similar pattern with his teams. He would recruit a talented class. I'd get excited about the new players. They would be inconsistent but show promise in nonconference play. Then they would fall apart in conference play. Then several players would take off and Rice would have to rebuild the roster again.
We've been pretty banged up too this season which hasn't helped. I'm optimistic because I'm thinking ahead to year 2 or 3 with Menzies and feel he has proven himself as a head coach in the past. With much more time to recruit and with players playing a second season for him, I feel we're going to improve a lot by next year and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the team surpass what the teams did in the last 3 years (last year our team was only 18-15). If we don't improve by much a year from now I'll be really disappointed.
I'll give you that we were clearly better last year in nonconference play. But when I look at the whole season last year was pretty bad. I couldn't believe how bad we were against our own conference. I was shocked. It's hard for me to get excited about wins against Indiana and Oregon when we were 8-10 in our own conference and 1-3 against the Pac-12.
Well, if you are going to talk about banged up this year, Rebels were SOL on that end last year, too. Carter missed half the season, Zimm missed a good chunk, Derrick missed the last third of the season or so, etc. Actually, for whatever reasons, the Rebels have been on the poorer side of luck when it comes to injuries.
You can call last year's win against Oregon a fluke. Maybe it was. But flukes usually aren't games in which you essentially lead from tip to final whistle. And flukes usually happen once in a while. You don't beat Indiana as well. And you aren't going to compete in some other games if that game is a fluke. Over the years, even in losses, UNLV was very competitive against some good teams, games in which they were in striking distance or even had the lead heading into the last 10 minutes of those games.
We don't know anything about Menzies yet. He could our second best coach ever or he could make Rollie look like Wooden. We just don't know. And we won't know for a few years.
A game like tonight will say a lot about this team and to determine if they are actually improving.
Also we were without two of our post players that really are very very important to the team especially in terms of experience and toughness.
Also we were without two of our post players that really are very very important to the team especially in terms of experience and toughness.
It's one of those things - is it better to have no expectations and meet them or have high expectations and come up short? Which one leaves you "better"? I do know that one breeds apathy while the other gives anger. So which is worse????
Would you rather be mad, angry, frustrated and disappointed instead of not caring. One is easier on the heart and mind, that's for sure.
This year, my view is that I get a free ride with respect to expectations. That is a bit overstated. The result of any game is not important but I do want to see improvement. Improvement in the play of individuals and the improvement in the play of the team.
We are where we are and what transpired to get us to this point was completely out of my control. Consequently, I spend zero time lamenting the comedy of errors or placing blame.
I just root for the rag tag team that Menzies miraculously assembled and am surprised every time we win a game.
We are where we are and what transpired to get us to this point was completely out of my control. Consequently, I spend zero time lamenting the comedy of errors or placing blame.
I just root for the rag tag team that Menzies miraculously assembled and am surprised every time we win a game.
Our team hasn't even been at full strength for one game yet so we haven't even seen what they can do when they are at full strength.
We were 18-15 last year. 18-15 the year before. 20-13 the year before that. That's 43 losses in 3 years to a lot of teams that were not even good. Close losses and a few upsets don't make up for that. Did they help us win the conference? Did they get us in the NCAA Tournament? We weren't even close.
The win against Oregon last year wasn't even a road game. I think it makes no sense to overlook that. Just because we beat them at home, that doesn't mean we pull it off on the road. We might have lost by 20 on the road to that team. Who knows? We had more surprising losses than that during the season.
I was reacting before to your comment that this program has a "massive" plunge. I think we obviously did take a step back but I wouldn't say it's a "massive" step back when we didn't really accomplish anything the last 3 seasons either.
You're right. We weren't ranked. Yet we beat ranked teams. One of them by double digits. Indiana was a true neutral game. Battled at Arizona before it slipped away late (I think Zimm or somebody was lost to injury that game) and we battled until late at Wichita State. A loss is a loss is a loss, but there's a big difference between competing and not competing. We've lost two games to our two best opponents by 70 points so far. Who knows, it may crack 100 after KU. But since the Oregon game was a home game last year as you state, perhaps our true home game against Kansas should be used as a comparison to last year?
We completely unraveled in league play and lost three tight games that shouldn't have been tight games. I'm not going to stand here for a second and debate that the team didn't underachieve in conference.
But I know just about every UNLV fan thought we'd have chance in those games against better teams. Maybe not a fantastic chance; but a real chance. And not too many were all that surprised we won, because it was always within the realm of possibility. It's not possible this season. We know we are defeated before the tip. That might feel ok to you, to others - and even though I understand the reasons why we are at this point, it still doesn't feel ok to me.
I just want to see some stability, some improvement, etc. Saying we went from losing by 50 to Duke to 20 vs Oregon is improvement - to me, that's grasping at this straws. The zone D looked ALOT better for a lot longer than previously. Offensively, still not a lot going on by way of scheme. Everyone is trying to make a play for themselves. And they are not all that capable offensively. Poyser and Mooring to a degree, but that's it.
Aesthetically, maybe not so much in the results (but losing by 3-7 touchdowns isn't acceptable), I expected the team to be a little further along than this, especially given that they had a 2 month head start on most others.
"They are not all that capable" pretty much sums it up. Nice win last night, though. In conference, they may be more "capable".
It sucks sitting in the Mack with these small crowds. No energy. Weak Rebbbbbbellls chants, band only gets to play the fight song at prescribed times...I know it won't change til they win, but damn.
My OP was just trying to highlight some success, which felt good even if it was short-lived.
My OP was just trying to highlight some success, which felt good even if it was short-lived.
One thing that annoys me is many fans use forums like this just to vent. And some people seem miserable and just want to complain all the time. Not talking about anyone in particular in this thread; just something that I've seen over and over again on forums. Sometimes optimism isn't allowed I guess. I actually seriously considered starting a "Fire Menzies" thread because it doesn't take long before it gets to that point.
We were only down 5 at halftime at Oregon so I actually did think we had a chance. I didn't think we had no chance in that game. And again, to be only down 5 at halftime against them on the road when they are tougher than anyone in our conference and we weren't at full strength is a reason to be optimistic.
We were only down 5 at halftime at Oregon so I actually did think we had a chance. I didn't think we had no chance in that game. And again, to be only down 5 at halftime against them on the road when they are tougher than anyone in our conference and we weren't at full strength is a reason to be optimistic.
I'll admit our offense sucked at Oregon. The team had to really battle and play good defense to stay in it, and they actually did those things (for at least the first half anyway).
Every team Rice had lost too many close games in my opinion. It was a pattern that continued for too long. And Rice never seemed to have any answers. After another close loss, Rice would say the team wasn't tough enough. The team had to get tougher. I heard that from him for 5 years and the team had a different roster every year. He didn't seem to have anything to say besides that.
One might think Rice might have something else to say. The team would miss half its free throws, lose by 2 points, and Rice would say "We need to get that intensity and that toughness."
I think those types of comments from Rice are pretty meaningless.
Listening to some of the interviews with Menzies has lowered my opinion of Rice, and made me more optimistic about the future.
We lost way too many tight ones, it sucked badly. Aside from a few games it seemed like win by double digits or drop a close one. Very poor FT shooting was a culprit in the vast majority of those games, which to me, is a mental toughness. It was maddening how many close games (Especially those that shouldn't have been close in the first place) UNLV dropped in conference. Sometimes it was a decent play made, some bad luck (at BSU, at CSU). Sometimes it was failed hero ball (BDJ, RIP)... but you are right, way too many close ones dropped.
But my point is we were able to compete with and beat some of the best in the land and it was no way a fluke. Too many times, wins by too many points.
I have my own theory - because of the higher level recruits we had, guys whose end game was the NBA, some players, enough players, weren't focused enough on the little old pissy MWC with no national TV in tiny arenas with small crowds in remote places. I think they got amped for the big games, let it all out, and performed. When "nobody was watching", they lost any edge they may have had. And remember, it doesn't take every guy to take that route for it to be bad. One or two can throw it off.
I miss having a team we know CAN win against elites. I don't miss having a team that loses that much in the MWC.
This year we don't have the first and I hope we don't have the second.
By your very own logic then, it also wasn't a fluke when we significantly regressed as the year went along, tanked in our pathetic conference, lost to far, far less talented opponents. You know, because it happened consistently, not just once in awhile. By your logic, the yearly mass exodus wasn't a fluke. The players not seeming to care about playing what you call 'lesser opponents'. The staggering failures to adjust. Because they too, happened quite consistently.
I know I'd rather have a team which can play up to their potential, rather than one who we know (because they consistently do it year after year) will massively underachieve with remarkable talent on their roster.
