UNLV Basketball: Getting the Rebels back to glory days as a program

1 of 3

LAS VEGAS, NV – FEBRUARY 28: (EDITORS NOTE: This image was shot with a fisheye lens.) A general view shows the court during a pregame program before a game between the Nevada Wolf Pack and the UNLV Rebels at the Thomas & Mack Center on February 28, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Wolf Pack won 101-75. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /

UNLV Basketball was an elite program in the 90’s. How close is the program to returning back to the glory days?

The UNLV Runnin’ Rebels won the national championship in 1990 and came within a bucket of making it back to the game in 1991, in the 27 years since the Rebels have struggled to obtain the levels of success the team saw under legendary coach Jerry Tarkanian.

Since the end of the 1991 season, UNLV has made the NCAA Tournament just eight times. In those eight appearances, the team suffered six first-round losses, including in their last four trips. The team hasn’t won a game in the tournament since 2008, a year after making the Sweet Sixteen, the program’s only tournament wins since losing to Duke in the Final Four 27 years earlier.

Since Tarkanian left UNLV in 1992, the team has had a hard time finding a coach that can help the team get back to the glory days of Runnin’ Rebels’ basketball. From 1994-2004 the team had a total of six coaches.

Related Story. 3 Biggest Mountain West threats to Nevada in 2019. light

Post-Tarkanian era

Former Villanova coach Rollie Massimino was hired to replace Tarkanian but he lasted just two seasons and a 36-21 record. The team then hired Tim Grgurich but he lasted just seven games before resigning, assistants Howie Landa and Cleveland Edwards finished out the 1994-95 season. The following season the Rebels hired Bill Bayno, an assistant coach at UMass, his first season in Las Vegas was the school’s worst since moving to Division I with just 10 wins. In 1997 he engineered a 12-win turnaround with some high-level recruiting and the following season the team returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991.

Despite the success, Bayno would only last two more full seasons, resigning seven games into the 2000-01 season amid recruiting violations committed during the recruitment of Lamar Odom. After attempting to lure Rick Pitino away from Kentucky, UNLV settled on Charlie Spoonhour as its next coach. Despite two 21-win seasons and back-to-back NIT bids, Spoonhour resigned in the middle of his third season, leaving the school to again look for a coach that could add some stability to the program.

Former Illinois and Kansas State head man Lon Kruger was that man, Kruger lasted seven seasons on the strip and despite winning 69% of his games and leading the team to four NCAA bids, the fanbase and higher-ups wanted more and Kruger was let go after the 2011 season.

The team tabbed a familiar face to lead the squad next, Dave Rice was a member of the 1990 national championship team. He made the Big Dance in his first two seasons, but they played just .500 in the Mountain West over the next two seasons and Rice resigned midway through the 2015 season, assistant Todd Simon finished the season and once again the team found itself looking for a head coach.

The school thought they had found their man in Chris Beard. Beard had just won 30 games at Arkansas-Little Rock and defeated Purdue in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. After being hired, Beard spurned the Rebels less than three weeks later when he decided to take the top job at Texas Tech instead. After unsuccessfully trying to lure Mick Cronin away from Cincinnati, the Rebels again found their man in longtime New Mexico State coach Marvin Menzies. In his nine seasons at the helm of NMSU, he won over 20 games seven times and made five trips to the NCAA Tournament.