Columnist Steve Carp: Rebels took the long way to get here

Steve Carp

Thursday, March 12, 1998 | 12:02 p.m.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- As the final seconds were ticking off and the celebration to UNLV's return to the NCAA Tournament was beginning at the Thomas & Mack Center, it was a perfect time to reflect on the past.

Remember, it has been seven years since UNLV has appeared in an NCAA basketball event. A lot has happened during that time, and when you're experiencing it, you can't help but remember all that has gone on.

But tonight at the Hartford Civic Center, Bill Bayno's Rebels will be welcomed back by a sellout crowd in what is one of the first round's most intriguing matchups against No. 8 Princeton. And while it's a great story for college basketball and especially for long-suffering UNLV fans, let us not forget the hardships and obstacles that have befallen this program over the past seven years.

There have been bizarre moments. Disappointing moments. Angry moments. Heart wrenching monets.

Do you remember back in 1992 when Jerry Tarkanian's team was 26-2 and not eligible to play in the tournament when the players tried to sue the NCAA for the right to play? And then have the school's own lawyers side with the NCAA?

It was one of the few times Tark lost at home, as the Rebels' case was turned down in Las Vegas District Court.

Or what about the following year when the team was gearing up for the Big West tournament in Long Beach and found out that its star player, J.R. Rider, was guilty of academic fraud? When it turned out his tutor wrote his papers for him but couldn't spell Rider's first name right?

Rider didn't play, the Rebels were quickly dispatched and wound up getting trounced by Southern Cal in the NIT St. Patrick's Day Massacre.

Of course, the entire Rollie Massimino Era was a fiasco, as it turned out he needed extra money from a secret fund to be an underachieving coach. That sordid chapter will be closed in November when he receives his last paycheck as Nevada's highest-paid state employee as part of his settlement with the university.

And when the glory days were thought to be returning when former Tark aide Tim Grgurich returned as coach, it ended in disaster with Grgurich stepping down health reasons and assistants Howie Landa and Cle Edwards at each other's throats. Both acted as interim head coaches and the program was in as bad a shape as one can remember.

Then there was the entire coaching search debacle. Every person UNLV brought in used the job as leverage to cut himself a better deal at his own school. Finally, interim president Kenny Guinn told then- athletic director Jim Weaver the game was over and he was going to hire a 33-year-old assistant from Massachusetts. Weaver was gone a few weeks later.

To his credit, Bill Bayno has helped bring UNLV basketball back. But even Bayno has had issues to deal with. The Lamar Odom recruiting incident (UNLV assistant Greg Vetrone was implicated in a report that suggested Odom's entrance exam scores were doctored) was a blight on the program, as were the suspensions of Clark and Kevin Simmons for accepting a trip to Florida from sports agents last spring. And the evenual departure of star center Keon Clark (for breaking team rules), the man who was supposed to lead this team here, is a sad chapter for the history books.

Of course, those are just the major potholes on the road to the Big Dance. There are plenty of smaller ones. But think about what you just read and what this program has had to overcome with these last seven years. As they say on the street, that's a lot of stuff to deal with.

But somehow, this school has found a way to deal with it.

Back in the summer, when everyone was predicting UNLV would be here tonight, little did they know the trip would take a little longer and be a lot harder than expected.

But given what has transpired over the past seven years, what's a few extra miles? The facts are the Rebels are here and they're back. And Hartford is glad to have them.