Columnist Dean Juipe: Blame Utah for Rebels’ weak slate

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Nov. 9, 1999 | 10:14 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@vegas.com or 259-4084.

He is aware of the complaints, yet, he admits, "they fall on deaf ears."

Bill Bayno does not want to hear about the mediocrity of his UNLV basketball team's nonconference schedule. Keeping apples to apples, he says his team's slate is as tough as any in the Mountain West Conference.

He even likens it to those played by powerhouses Duke and Connecticut.

But for the apples and oranges crowd that recalls the kind of schedule the Rebels used to play, Bayno has little defense. His 1999-2000 team has it easy compared to many of its predecessors.

At random and simply because it was 10 years ago, look at the caliber of competition UNLV faced during its 1989-90 nonconference schedule: Loyola Marymount, California, Kansas, DePaul, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, Temple, Fresno State, LSU, North Carolina State, Oklahoma State, Arizona and Louisville.

In retrospect, it's almost unbelievable. The Rebels played one game after another against top-flight competition, without a breather in the group.

In part because it discovered something about itself during that tough schedule, UNLV went on to win the national championship (and finish 35-5). Yes, those were the days; the Rebels were winning hard-fought games against high-profile opponents and the Thomas & Mack Center crowds were excitable and immense.

In the years since, cream puffs have infiltrated the nonconference lineup and this season the Rebels will face this relatively innocuous collection of big hitters and small fries: Mississippi Valley State, Fairfield, Nevada-Reno, Georgetown, Princeton, either North Carolina or College of Charleston, Austin Peay, Oklahoma State, Cal Poly SLO, Eastern Kentucky, Cincinnati, High Point and Florida Atlantic. Only five of those 13 figure to be difficult games.

League mates Colorado State and Utah also have five imposing games apiece on their schedules, while San Diego State and Wyoming have three, New Mexico and BYU have two and Air Force has none.

"Every school schedules teams like we do," Bayno said, although that's no consolation to a ticket-buying public that is paying more but enjoying it less. "You have to schedule for success and you don't want to schedule to fail.

"We play in an extremely tough road league and you can't beat your team up in nonconference games."

To repetitively play the better teams and suffer nonconference defeats leads the team on the short end "to get down on itself and lose confidence," Bayno maintains.

But what he fails to address are these concerns: Fans, especially in Las Vegas, are easily bored when the opponent is Fairfield or High Point; as a result, attendance and goodwill toward the university take a hit; there's a perception that UNLV is no longer among the nation's basketball elite; and it is arguable what the Rebels gain as individuals and as a team by roughing up Florida Atlantic.

Bayno acknowledges the argument but shrugs. He says what's good enough for Rick Majerus is good enough for him, and if Utah can schedule softies like Stony Brook, Sioux Falls and Augusta State, then UNLV is entitled to its Cal Poly SLOs.

The only solution from a fan's or a reporter's perspective is to start beating up on Majerus for setting such a poor example.