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UNLV Rebels: Can Dave Rice Get Things Right?

By Daniel Tran

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With couple of top recruits under their belt, the UNLV Rebels have everything they need to be in contention for the Mountain West Title. Getting there, however, will be a completely different issue.

It has been a while since you could say that UNLV was starving for relevance in the NCAA. Long gone are the years of NCAA Tournament droughts and lack of national recognition, but there is still something missing from the once mighty Runnin’ Rebel basketball program.

Not since the days of Jerry Tarkanian has UNLV advanced to the Elite Eight. Although they have regularly been able to participate in the NCAA Tournament, UNLV has struggled to build anything significant despite having some top-level talent coming through the school in recent years.

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This year, head coach Dave Rice has been able to convince Stephen Zimmerman (five-star center), Jalen Posyer (four-star shooting guard), and Derrick Jones (four-star small forward) to join the Runnin’ Rebels in trying to build a program that will resemble the UNLV teams of old in their fast-paced style of play. But will that amount of talent be enough for them to overcome the past four years of high expectations and disappointing results?

For all of his recruiting prowess, head coach Dave Rice has yet to prove he is the coach that can take UNLV over the top in terms of consistent results. His first two years at UNLV resulted in two NCAA Tournament berths that were squandered after the Runnin’ Rebels lost their only game in those tournaments.

Even more telling, since he took over in 2011, Rice has been unable secure either a Mountain West Regular Season Title or a Mountain West Tournament Championship. It is not as if he has been slumming it with walk-ons year in and year out either.

Rice has had the pleasure of recruiting and coaching talented players like Anthony Bennett, Khem Birch, Katin Reinhardt, Christian Wood, Deville Smith in the past. Getting kids to UNLV was never Rice’s problem. It was his coaching on the floor that has doomed his teams.

A perfect example would be the 2014-15 season. Rice was able to secure the fifth-best class in the nation last season by getting players like Rashad Vaughn, Dwayne Morgan, and Goodluck Okonoboh. They would finish 8-10 in Mountain West Conference play, lose in the second round of the Mountain West Tournament, and fail to reach the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year. Bottom line: he could not get the best out of his players.

And if you want a first hand account of Rice’s coaching ability, look no further than the experience of Demetris Morant, who transferred to Florida Gulf Coast University prior to the 2014 season. Morant went as far to say that Rice’s practices weren’t “getting anyone better at all,” a pretty damning statement for anyone to explicitly say about a coach.

Couple that statement with the four other transfers of the players that he has recruited in the past four years and there is a very unflattering picture that is being painted regarding Rice’s ability to get the best out of his players. With each season where Rice brings in highly touted recruits, there is still excitement, but also a cautious thought that it might all fall apart because he just can’t handle the responsibility.

The additions or Zimmerman, Posyer, and Jones, UNLV is experiencing another year of high expectations that will remind the nation of that high-flying Runnin’ Rebel team of the early 90s. However, based on how Rice has handled those expectations last year and the years before that, restraint may need to be practiced before jumping on the UNLV hype train.

Next: Nigel Williams-Goss Chooses Gonzaga

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