Sign of apathy...

[UNLVFansincebirth22]

I find it telling that UNLV played a game against TCU tonight--which ended over an hour ago--and there isn't a single thread about the game on the board. This is a microcosm of what has been going on this season thus far.

When UNLV was playing NAU the other night, my buddy texted me, "I had no clue UNLV was even playing tonight.". To which I responded, "Neither did I."

Very, very sad.

 

[ThailandReb]

It is sad; in 20-plus years of being a Rebel fan (since 1995), i've never witnessed such apathy, even in the Spoon years.

I think a lot of it was that our hopes were so high that Rice would be the one and return us to our rightful place as a legitimate elite program. What happened was the exact opposite, he left the program in absolute shambles. Add to that an honestly inconceivable coaching search fiasco that I couldn't have even dreamed up myself. Add to that our new coach was literally the one coach that everyone was united as being the least-desirable candidate, who stumbled into the job when nobody else in the entire country wanted it. What a mess.

Still have hope in Marv, but this year I think the absolute best we can hope for is a middle-of-the-pack finish in a turd of a conference. Is Marv capable of someday elevating us back to elite status? Again, I have hopes and will give him a chance, but from an unbiased standpoint it's highly doubtful.

Sigh.

 

[RebelSoldat]

Agreed on all points.


But people wanted the job. George Karl was ready to come again but Tina and her pals wanted Menzies. Oh well.

Ryan Miller wanted it too

 

[RebPubnGrub]

Agreed on all points.


But people wanted the job. George Karl was ready to come again but Tina and her pals wanted Menzies. Oh well.

Ryan Miller wanted it too

Totally agree that TKM screwed the pooch last year... however Carl ( would have been awesome 12 years ago) and Miller ( never been a head coach) aren't the answers even packaged with the holy grail of point guards.

Dave Rice killed the fan support. He had a healthy committed fan base when he took over and now it's turned into this... crickets. I do believe coach Menzies is gonna turn it around, I think if either CJ or CD were able to play we would of got an easy win. These tight early season games are gonna benefit us greatly during conference play. This team is very coachable, haven't seen that since Kruger's teams.

 

[Danny The Donger]

There is an 8 page game thread on MWC forums..Even for the shitters we played, there were 4-5 page threads going.

 

[RebelSoldat]

Totally agree that TKM screwed the pooch last year... however Carl ( would have been awesome 12 years ago) and Miller ( never been a head coach) aren't the answers even packaged with the holy grail of point guards.

Dave Rice killed the fan support. He had a healthy committed fan base when he took over and now it's turned into this... crickets. I do believe coach Menzies is gonna turn it around, I think if either CJ or CD were able to play we would of got an easy win. These tight early season games are gonna benefit us greatly during conference play. This team is very coachable, haven't seen that since Kruger's teams.

That's an odd take

 

[j. spilotro]

Totally agree that TKM screwed the pooch last year... however Carl ( would have been awesome 12 years ago) and Miller ( never been a head coach) aren't the answers even packaged with the holy grail of point guards.

Dave Rice killed the fan support. He had a healthy committed fan base when he took over and now it's turned into this... crickets. I do believe coach Menzies is gonna turn it around, I think if either CJ or CD were able to play we would of got an easy win. These tight early season games are gonna benefit us greatly during conference play. This team is very coachable, haven't seen that since Kruger's teams.

Rice was fired in January. He had nothing to do with the mass exodus, bad feelings, the poaching of players and recruits and the media jokes that crushed this program while the university couldn't get anyone hired in a timely fashion. Less than a year ago we were beating S16 and FF teams. By double digits. The crime was not performing in conference. Firing somebody midseason is bad enough. Not having a hard fast plan afterwards was suicide. And we are seeing the results of that now.

 

[MonsterJam]

Just got back on vacation - and I agree, a lot of apathy on the team. But part of it is holidays.

Either way, I don't care about the bandwagoners. I like Menzies (I liked Rice when he was first hired too) and I am all in with him at the helm until I am not.

 

[Rebel_Luv]

This offseason ( yes I'm looking forward to it) will be the biggest in a long long time! if we don't see a improvement in talent and SOME development with the current players, means so much for the direction of this program. People like me and most of us are tired of rebuilding and I dont want to wait 5 years to make a tournament run!

 

[ThailandReb]

Rice was fired in January. He had nothing to do with the mass exodus, bad feelings, the poaching of players and recruits and the media jokes that crushed this program while the university couldn't get anyone hired in a timely fashion. Less than a year ago we were beating S16 and FF teams. By double digits. The crime was not performing in conference. Firing somebody midseason is bad enough. Not having a hard fast plan afterwards was suicide. And we are seeing the results of that now.

With all due respect Joe, I gotta disagree with a lot of this...

Rice had nothing to do with the mass exodus, number of transfers, etc...
The term 'mass exodus' became one of the main points of Rice's tenure. Every year we witnessed a mass exodus of players; particularly embarrassing was the annual group who declared early for the NBA draft, who didn't even get drafted at all! I don't even want to count how many times this happened in the Rice era. Add to that an alarming number of transfers, etc. I highly doubt that had Rice somehow managed to finish the year and not get canned, after an unbelievable 0-3 start in a historically weak MWC last year, the team would have magically avoided the mass exodus which to that point had become an annual tradition at UNLV.

Rice had nothing to do with the bad feelings....
You can perhaps be more specific with what you mean by "bad feelings" here, but pretty much everyone associated with UNLV had a lot of bad feelings in regards with the direction of the program under Rice's watch. From his first year, when he inherited an absolutely stacked roster from Kruger, to the day he was fired, his teams got progressively worse year-to-year, and as the season progressed each year. You can argue why and insert excuses in here, but it's a mathematical fact.

Rice had nothing to do with media jokes...
UNLV basketball had kinda become a dark joke by that point, hadn't it?

Less than a year ago we were beating S16 and FF teams. By double digits. The crime was not performing in conference.
Which made UNLV's unbelievably bad performance in the pathetic MWC even more of a 'crime', to use your words. It's a big part of the job to win conference games... you heavily criticized Kruger for never winning the MWC, but here you seem to be giving Dave an excuse because he beat good teams before conf. play.


What happened after Rice was canned is probably the main reason why we are where we are now, and was absolutely not his fault. That, of course, falls on TKM and the rest of the inept administration, as well as unbelievably bad luck during the Cronin and Beard fiascos. Then deciding on hiring Mediocre Marv, after all. But the tone of your post makes it seem like poor ol' Dave had absolutely nothing to do with the program being in shambles right now. Which I respectfully disagree. He did more than his part.

 

[Vegas007]

One reason is all the pessimistic predictions. People keep saying this team won't be good. And people are probably influenced too much by the media which is clueless about the team. I actually have some curiosity and excitement because I'm not buying that type of talk. Sure, the nonconference part of the schedule will be difficult, but I'm expecting for once to actually see improvement in conference play as long as injuries aren't too bad. And I think Menzies will do a much better job of getting guys to stick around so we're not just watching guys who will leave at the end of the season.

Menzies is probably also underrated as a head coach. Do people really think he should have been winning a lot in the NCAA Tournament games at his previous location? I never thought he was clearly a worse candidate than Beard. And Menzies is a better fit for Vegas anyway. I'm not even convinced he is inferior as a coach to Cronin. I didn't quite understand all the excitement over that guy. Just because the school had Menzies as its third choice, that doesn't mean they were right.

I expect Menzies to recruit much better than Kruger did and coach much better than Rice did. I don't know if he can make this program what it used to be, but I definitely see an upside that's higher than what we saw with Kruger.

 

[Vegas007]

Another thing about Menzies is he looks much more impressive to me than the candidates the last time the team hired a coach. I'm far more impressed with his resume than I am looking back at what Rice and Theus had to bring to the table. The coaching candidates this time around were much stronger IMO. So saying Menzies wasn't one of the top choices isn't a big knock on him IMO because he is being compared to some very good coaches.

 

[Vegas007]

It is sad; in 20-plus years of being a Rebel fan (since 1995), i've never witnessed such apathy, even in the Spoon years.

I think a lot of it was that our hopes were so high that Rice would be the one and return us to our rightful place as a legitimate elite program. What happened was the exact opposite, he left the program in absolute shambles. Add to that an honestly inconceivable coaching search fiasco that I couldn't have even dreamed up myself. Add to that our new coach was literally the one coach that everyone was united as being the least-desirable candidate, who stumbled into the job when nobody else in the entire country wanted it. What a mess.

Still have hope in Marv, but this year I think the absolute best we can hope for is a middle-of-the-pack finish in a turd of a conference. Is Marv capable of someday elevating us back to elite status? Again, I have hopes and will give him a chance, but from an unbiased standpoint it's highly doubtful.

Sigh.

The offseason was less exciting because the team doesn't have another top 5 rated recruiting class to get the fans excited. That's another reason in addition to what happened with the coaching search. I don't really agree that Menzies was as bad as you say even though I wanted Karl. Beard was a gamble and wasn't clearly a better choice IMO.

 

[ThailandReb]

Menzies is probably also underrated as a head coach. Do people really think he should have been winning a lot in the NCAA Tournament games at his previous location? I never thought he was clearly a worse candidate than Beard. And Menzies is a better fit for Vegas anyway. I'm not even convinced he is inferior as a coach to Cronin. I didn't quite understand all the excitement over that guy. Just because the school had Menzies as its third choice, that doesn't mean they were right.

I expect Menzies to recruit much better than Kruger did and coach much better than Rice did. I don't know if he can make this program what it used to be, but I definitely see an upside that's higher than what we saw with Kruger.

Another thing about Menzies is he looks much more impressive to me than the candidates the last time the team hired a coach. I'm far more impressed with his resume than I am looking back at what Rice and Theus had to bring to the table. The coaching candidates this time around were much stronger IMO. So saying Menzies wasn't one of the top choices isn't a big knock on him IMO because he is being compared to some very good coaches.

Good posts, well-presented. And I tend to agree, somewhat, which is part of the reason why i'm still on this message board despite the obvious lack of enthusiasm shared by too many others.

One of the reasons I have some level of hope in Menzies is, like you mentioned, despite his lack of NCAA wins, he at least managed to make it there consistently at a very undesirable school and location. Also, he came tantalizingly close to winning two of those games.

Sports, and especially basketball is obviously talent-focused... the teams with the most talent have the best shot of going, and often go the furthest (although with Rice's teams we saw firsthand that it doesn't always happen this way).

However, luck plays a significant part in all sports. Had Menzies won those two nail-biter NCAA games and advanced, his profile would be infinitely higher than it was during the UNLV coaching search. And again, he came very close. One or two more lucky bounces or favourable calls and he could've had 2 NCAA wins, one more than that turd Beard. The fact he consistently gave his teams those shots, in Las freakin' Cruces!... and nearly advanced not once but twice, gives me hope that he can elevate that level of success here with so much more at his disposal.

However, the track record out there of coaches who have been in the game as long as Marv has (over 30 years as an assistant or HC) who suddenly become big-time, is pretty much non-existent.

Interesting point about his resume as compared to those of Rice and Theus at the time. That had never crossed my mind but it's true. Rice had no HC experience and a long line of assistant positions on mostly slightly-above-average teams at BYU and Utah St. Theus had very brief success at NMSU, along with problems with the NCAA. It's pointless to speculate where we could have been had we gone with Theus instead, but from the looks of it he wouldn't have been the Chosen One either. Compared to those two, I can see how Marvelously Mediocre Marv stands out....

 

[j. spilotro]

With all due respect Joe, I gotta disagree with a lot of this...

Rice had nothing to do with the mass exodus, number of transfers, etc...
The term 'mass exodus' became one of the main points of Rice's tenure. Every year we witnessed a mass exodus of players; particularly embarrassing was the annual group who declared early for the NBA draft, who didn't even get drafted at all! I don't even want to count how many times this happened in the Rice era. Add to that an alarming number of transfers, etc. I highly doubt that had Rice somehow managed to finish the year and not get canned, after an unbelievable 0-3 start in a historically weak MWC last year, the team would have magically avoided the mass exodus which to that point had become an annual tradition at UNLV.

Rice had nothing to do with the bad feelings....
You can perhaps be more specific with what you mean by "bad feelings" here, but pretty much everyone associated with UNLV had a lot of bad feelings in regards with the direction of the program under Rice's watch. From his first year, when he inherited an absolutely stacked roster from Kruger, to the day he was fired, his teams got progressively worse year-to-year, and as the season progressed each year. You can argue why and insert excuses in here, but it's a mathematical fact.

Rice had nothing to do with media jokes...
UNLV basketball had kinda become a dark joke by that point, hadn't it?

Less than a year ago we were beating S16 and FF teams. By double digits. The crime was not performing in conference.
Which made UNLV's unbelievably bad performance in the pathetic MWC even more of a 'crime', to use your words. It's a big part of the job to win conference games... you heavily criticized Kruger for never winning the MWC, but here you seem to be giving Dave an excuse because he beat good teams before conf. play.


What happened after Rice was canned is probably the main reason why we are where we are now, and was absolutely not his fault. That, of course, falls on TKM and the rest of the inept administration, as well as unbelievably bad luck during the Cronin and Beard fiascos. Then deciding on hiring Mediocre Marv, after all. But the tone of your post makes it seem like poor ol' Dave had absolutely nothing to do with the program being in shambles right now. Which I respectfully disagree. He did more than his part.

Fire Rice after the season ends, UNLV is in a much, much different place right now, even if Marvin was the hire.

UNLV firing Rice to get a jump on a head coach backfired horribly and added potent fuel to an existing fire and then it got out of control.

There are things you can control and things you can't control. You can't control wins or losses, bounces of the balls or injuries. You can control when you fire a coach, who you hire as coach, you control the discussions with coaches. Where UNLV had to make actual important decisions, they botched it. Over a period of months.

 

[UNLVAlumni]

So many people were calling for Rice's head and said they won't support the program till he was fired.... well where are those people now. I go to every game. I paid my outrageous RAF money to support the team.

Menzies is doing a good job with what he has to work with. Plus the team is taking on injuries in our most vulnerable position plus we really only have one true center and he is an inexperienced freshman that has been hurt since he stepped on campus.

I am really disappointed in the students though. It doesn't cost them anything to go to the games. I sure hope they start turnin out because they do make a difference.

My expectations at the beginning of the season were very low for this team and do far to be honest they have exceeded what my expectations were.

Nobody said this season would be easy.

 

[MonsterJam]

I'll own up and say I was one of those people that wanted Rice gone before the season ended. I didnt think that the extra time that could have been used for a legit coaching search would be bungled so bad.

On another topic, watched New Mexico handle a Reggie Theus coached CSUN. I am glad that 1) we didnt entertain the thought of hiring him and 2) glad that Kendall Smith hit the road. They did not look good at all - and that wasn't anything UNM was doing to them.

 

[TarkisGod]

This has been a interesting and lively thread. So I'll apologize for focusing on a particular bone to pick, but...

Compared to those two, I can see how Marvelously Mediocre Marv stands out ....

That's at least the second post in which you've referred to Coach Menzies in this acerbic fashion. Call me thin-skinned, or hypersensitive or whatever, but I'm offended by the mocking nature of the term.

While it's true that he was a last-ditch choice in the nightmare coaching marathon, we should be the "mediocre" party in this process. We ought to be thanking him for being willing to take over the shambles of a program. Not the other way around.

In his short tenure, he's shown nothing but class. And he's managed, against all odds, to put an exciting team on the floor. No, they're not going to be an NCAA team this season, but they're a fun team to root for. Not something I have said in recent seasons.And he's been spotted actually coaching during games. Another foreign concept at UNLV.

You have every right to refer to him however you choose. And I have those same rights to find your characterization both arrogant and offensive.

 

[ThailandReb]

This has been a interesting and lively thread. So I'll apologize for focusing on a particular bone to pick, but...

That's at least the second post in which you've referred to Coach Menzies in this acerbic fashion. Call me thin-skinned, or hypersensitive or whatever, but I'm offended by the mocking nature of the term.

While it's true that he was a last-ditch choice in the nightmare coaching marathon, we should be the "mediocre" party in this process. We ought to be thanking him for being willing to take over the shambles of a program. Not the other way around.

In his short tenure, he's shown nothing but class. And he's managed, against all odds, to put an exciting team on the floor. No, they're not going to be an NCAA team this season, but they're a fun team to root for. Not something I have said in recent seasons.And he's been spotted actually coaching during games. Another foreign concept at UNLV.

You have every right to refer to him however you choose. And I have those same rights to find your characterization both arrogant and offensive.

Haha.... that is pretty dam thin skinned, man! But since you and I are some of the remaining Last Men Standing on this board and I don't want any beef, i'll try to refrain from it.

As i've said multiple times i'm rooting for Marv.. I just find the nickname (which I didn't make up) amusing.

 

[RebtillDeath]

Somebody should really take away your internet privileges in Thailand.
Dude coached at New Mexico STATE. Let's see how mediocre you would be coaching there.

 

[EastSideRebel]

I've been to every Rebel game this season and we're definitely not packing the mack like we used too but there is still at least 5-6K fans per game cheering them on which isn't much but still 5-6k ppl who could be doing anything else in Vegas but choose to root on the Rebs. Marvin is coaching these kids and they seem to genuinely care about playing for Vegas and UNLV. Win or lose I'll be there supporting.

 

[YellowSpinE]

With all due respect Joe, I gotta disagree with a lot of this...

Rice had nothing to do with the mass exodus, number of transfers, etc...

I wasn't a Rice fan after his 2nd or 3rd year. But, the administration has as much blame in everything as Rice. It was a huge fiasco and nothing seemed to have been handled properly. From the mid-season firing to... well... just about everything else. Hard to get excited after all that crap and self destruction of the program. It's embarrassing even when I think about it.