Thursday, April 9, 1998 | 8:11 a.m.
FOR UNLV fans bummed by the news Korleone Young is taking his game to the NBA instead of the Thomas & Mack Center, don't waste your tears.
In fact, you should be grateful he decided to test the NBA waters.
Young, a 6-foot-7 forward from Hargrave Military Academy, had verbally committed to UNLV a couple of months ago. But the reality is Young was not likely to be academically eligible.
As good as Young may have been -- and he's a pretty good player now -- he wouldn't have helped the UNLV program in the long run. And maybe not in the short term, either.
Would he have beaten out Kevin Simmons at the power forward spot? Probably not. He wouldn't supplant JC transfer Shawn Marion at small forward. And do you think a guy who was a McDonald's All-American would be happy sitting on the bench?
This was good news for UNLV Wednesday. Unless you suffered a recent memory lapse, you may recall how too much talent nearly became this team's undoing. The facts are you can't keep 10-11 guys happy all the time when only five can play at any given time.
So why repeat the same mistake? UNLV coach Bill Bayno would have insisted that Young play for two years minimum before bolting for the big money. And what if he started rocking the boat?
This way, you don't have those problems. There are enough short-term problems with the Rebels that Bayno didn't need to concern himself with another.
He still has to get two of his freshmen recruits -- Chris Richardson and Desmond Herod -- academically eligible. Neither has passed the SAT, though both are close. Bayno still has to sweat out Marion's option of going pro. The deadline to declare for the NBA draft is May 8. There are people in Marion's ear all the time telling him to grab the cash and forget about school.
Then there are those already in the program. They're part of the solution -- both long term and short term. Someone has to teach Kaspars Kambala how to play defense. Issiah Epps needs to learn how to score from beyond five feet. And Greedy Daniels and Donovan Stewart should find a way between now and November to make a free throw.
That's where the staff's energies need to be used and that's where they supposedly are, save for the recruitment of New York schoolboy star Anthony Glover. The players already in the program need to get better. That's how the team will get better. Not by bringing in a talented but still developing player who would be using UNLV as a pit stop on his way to shaking hands with NBA commissioner David Stern.
This isn't to disparage Young. He did the right thing because it was evident his heart wasn't into playing college ball. And even if his heart was in it, his grades probably would have prevented him from doing so.
This way, his mind's made up and he can move forward. Hopefully, he makes it in the NBA at some point.
UNLV, to its credit, had already moved forward when the news became official Wednesday. The scoreboard already shows Bayno and his team ahead.
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