UNLV Basketball: Marvin Menzies out after 3 years as head coach

Let’s look at the coaching career of Marvin Menzies while also examining the future for UNLV Basketball.

After three seasons, UNLV has fired head coach Marvin Menzies after underachieving for most of his tenure. Menzies had built New Mexico State into the WAC’s best program, but just couldn’t get the Rebels competitive at the top of the Mountain West. He was rated 86th in our early season head coach rankings, though most of that was based on his success with the Aggies; his years in Vegas didn’t stand out.

After graduating from UCLA, Menzies embarked on a coaching career on the west coast, taking him to Santa Monica, Sacramento State, San Diego State, USC, and UNLV. He spent two seasons under Rick Pitino at Louisville before landing the New Mexico State job in 2007. He spent nine years leading the Aggies and did outstanding work, leading the team to 5 NCAA Tournaments. His 198-111 record was impressive enough for UNLV to tab him as head coach back in 2016.

As many people remember, Menzies was not the first choice for the UNLV job. Chris Beard spent a week in the position before his dream job opened up at Texas Tech. Regardless; Menzies was a pretty fantastic consolation prize, though things have not panned out at UNLV. Year one was rough (11-21), but he went just 48-48 with the Rebels and never competed with Nevada and the other teams at the top of the league. Menzies’ Rebels were just 1-6 against Nevada.

This past season was a 17-14 effort from the Rebels, which certainly wasn’t enough progress for Menzies to keep his job. This team excelled at offensive rebounding but were pretty average at just about everything else this season. They lost starting forward Shakur Juiston (10.8 ppg, 8.8 rpg) just eight games into the season, something that certainly didn’t help this season. The leading scorer for the team was senior guard Kris Clyburn (14.1 ppg, 5.3 rpg). There could be an exodus of transfers, but the best returning players would be sophomore guard Amauri Hardy (13.1 ppg, 3.5 apg) and freshman forward Joel Ntambwe (11.8 ppg, 5.5 rpg).

There have been rumors for weeks about UNLV’s next head coach and the school is eager to spend on a big name. Rumors about Rick Pitino may be slightly exaggerated, but former Ohio State coach Thad Matta is a legitimate candidate. Matta took Ohio State the Buckeyes to a pair of Final Fours and stepped down two years ago in part due to health issues. He has the ability to reinvigorate this fanbase and rebuild this program. If UNLV can’t agree to a deal with Matta or Pitino, then they might be forced to hire another stud mid-major coach, but would the results be any different?

That being said, Menzies is a great coach who just didn’t fit well in Las Vegas. New Mexico State is by far the best program in the WAC, but Menzies still accomplished a lot with the Aggies and certainly has the resume to bounce back as a head coach very soon. UNLV needs to make a splash to jumpstart the program; we’ll just have to see how long it takes them to make that big hire. Can this program ever get back to where Jerry Tarkanian had it back in the early 1990’s?