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I was all set to go to the Thomas & Mack Center on Saturday night. I wanted to go so bad, but I’m the biggest San Diego Chargers fan. I love the Chargers.
Anyone reading this, I’m sure, knows this because I’ve written it so frequently. But the Spanos family has been so great to me. They always take care of me when I’m in San Diego.
I started watching their game against Indianapolis, and I thought I was going to leave at halftime. But that game was so good, so I taped the UNLV game and watched the rest of the Chargers.
What a thrill to watch them beat Peyton Manning and the Colts in overtime.
So I didn’t make it to the Mack. But after the Chargers game I watched the Rebels.
Their win over Louisville was so impressive. I’ve said it before, but that René Rougeau is fantastic. I mean, he does everything – he blocks shots, brings the ball up the court when they’re being pressed, hits the mid-range shots, attacks the basket, blocks shots.
He can play any position on the court. I have a lot of respect for him.
I thought it was big, a great win, when they beat Louisville without Wink Adams. And the Rebels scored the first 10 points of the game. This is not a typical Rick Pitino team.
I regard Rick as one of the great coaches in the country. His team did not play nearly as hard as I’ve seen them play in the past. In fact, UNLV played harder than they did.
To do that at Freedom Hall is hard to do. You have to give UNLV all the credit in the world.
Sunday, Louisville got after it against Kentucky. Yet, Kentucky almost beat the Cardinals. This isn’t supposed to be a great Kentucky team. But Louisville will get better and better.
It was a great win for UNLV. Then the Rebels came back and struggled a little against New Mexico. Still, they pulled it out. You have to give them credit there.
What’s happening is people are having difficulty playing against UNLV’s defense.
Both this team and my team played pressure defense, but this UNLV team switches every screen. If you run screens against UNLV, they’ll just switch every one. They do a great job of that.
You can wind up with a lot of mismatches. You can have a guard guarding a forward, or a guard on a center. But they don’t get hurt by that.
And they do a great job on post defense. When they switch, they switch aggressively, too. They have pressure on the ball. I like a lot of the things they’re doing.
We only switched the guards, not forwards to guards or centers to forwards. Only guards. It was automatic.
New Mexico did a great job of combating that in the first half. You’re not going to get much offense off the screens because they switch every one.
One reason they can do that is because their guards are so big. Wink can guard a big man. Rougeau can guard anyone. So they switch screens, and it’s hard to run set plays against UNLV because of that fact.
New Mexico drove the ball and dished off in the first half. In the second half – I don’t know why – they got back to running plays off double screens.
That never worked. UNLV steps out and did a great job switching. We didn’t switch screens. We relied so much on our guys not getting beat on the dribble.
We said all the time, Don’t get beat on the dribble. They heard that 20 times every day in practice.
But I thought those were two good victories for the Rebels.
Another guy I like, who doesn’t play a whole lot, is Mo Rutledge. I think he’s effective. He’s really efficient and aggressive. He can knock down a shot. He can go to the boards for you. I like him.
The more I watch Rougeau – I could write about him in every column – the more I think he’s something else. He’s got to be the best walk-on, or former walk-on, in the country. Without a doubt.
Next time, I’ll tell cover free throws, Duke and a drink called Cure.
Jerry Tarkanian I so enjoy reading your writing
On Mo Rutledge. It seems to me that when he came on his whole thing was he was a left handed sharpshooter. I'm not sure what his stats are but I can tell you that he is not that efficient of a shooter. What I do like about Mo is when you need someone to make a tough aggressive play, he'll do that. He'll bang bodies and attack the boards and the basket. Definitely one of the toughest players on the team, if not one of the better shooters.
Love this column - I learn something new and interesting from Tark every time. Question for coach: this UNLV team tends to play to the level of their competition. What did you do to inspire your teams to beat inferior squads by 30 instead of 2?
And Jerry, all that with a bum left index finger. He's learned to adapt well with that thing being wrapped, and it's not a few pieces of tape, either. He's very fundamental on defense in practice, and coaches often -- like Lew Hill did Monday -- point to him as an example of how to defend/deny.
Mo has had a big transition from JCs to D-I, and that's what last season was about. He's just now getting comfortable on the big stage. Too bad he didn't go to UNLV out of high school. I think you'd have seen some dynamic performances last season and this.
m1, thanks! Tark enjoys this a great deal and wants his fans to know how much he appreciates them, and seeing them at UNLV games.
We are working on his next few columns, so look for a response to your query maybe a couple weeks down the line.
There's a lotta good stuff coming up, cool insight on Jimmy Valvano, Raquel Welch (yes!) and other subjects and topics.
Thanks
Although the bum finger probably affects his shot a lot, we still didn't see a lot of great shooting from him last season. Great defender, great toughness.
Yeah, Jerry, I thought I explained it. No big deal. It was just a difficult transition for him last season. He's the last guy who will make an excuse. Anyway, I believe I'll address that in an upcoming feature. It's actually pretty interesting. Thing is, he's adapted well to playing with the bulky left index finger. He took the wrapping off at halftime Saturday, but it was back on at practice Monday.
thanks
I hope it heals up soon. I'd love to see him pull the trigger on those open 3 pointers and drill em!
He had almost turned a corner, but when he bangs it into anything, ZAP. It was way puffy for a long time, not the usual jam. He's adapted well to it. Hopefully, he doesn't get too used to it where it throws off his shot when it's not wrapped! He is a stand-up guy who knows how fortunate he is to have gotten a second shot at a collegiate career. Type his name into our search box to find an in-depth feature or two on Mo's background. He's a very interesting subject.
Wow -- followed your advice, Rob, and came up with this:
http://www.calcentral.com/~computehandsf...
When you're compared to the legendary Sidd Finch, that's pretty darn good :) Note how he is (was?) the greatest shooter his coach had ever seen...
Good stuff Jumpin. I did a piece (not to toot my own horn, but, well...) on him a year ago about how he got back into juco ball after a couple of years in the Atlanta area working on the dock of a furniture store, among other gigs. Very impressive guy.
You the man Tark.There was no bigger show in town when I was a kid than UNLV basketball.Im a native Vegan started going to the games when I was around 5 so in 1975.Met you many times.I would like you to talk about Anthony Jones a little.He is a great Rebel that you rarely hear about.Also I was living in the Philippines the 91-92 season and wondering how to get my hands on those games by chance anyone knows.