Columnist Dean Juipe: Loss puts UNLV coach on hot seat

Dean Juipe

Monday, Dec. 11, 2000 | 10:02 a.m.

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

It's important to keep in mind that UNLV president Carol Harter is very fond of basketball coach Bill Bayno and she isn't apt to send him packing unless the pressure on her is immense.

But after what happened Saturday in Reno, that pressure is certain to be building.

Bayno has had his detractors for some time, and they're periodically vocal. But those who would like to see him fired have been a very small minority and their power within the city and university structure has been minimal.

But the Bayno Must Go club is gaining members and its enrollment probably doubled after his Rebels lost by an 80-71 score to Nevada-Reno. It was a game and an outcome that was completely befuddling.

No way should this UNLV basketball team be losing to Reno. And even as the second half progressed and it became apparent that victory was slipping away, it remained hard to believe.

Even today it's confounding. The Rebels, with a host of talented if individualistic players, beaten by a Reno team that won only nine games last season and was coming off a loss to lowly Portland State? It simply wasn't supposed to happen.

Now that it has, it forces everyone associated with the UNLV program to take a good look at the man in charge.

Bayno would never admit to worrying about people looking over his shoulder, but as of this week they'll be there. With his team 3-4 and heading toward a big game with Cincinnati Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center, suddenly the coach is on the hot seat.

This is really not something any of us in the media envisioned. When Bayno was hired in 1995 he was 33 years old and fit the imagine of the hustling, hoop-crazed workaholic. He was the breath of new life the program so badly needed after crotchety Rollie Massimino seemed to ruin things.

Bayno's foibles, including his general distrust of just about anyone not in his inner circle, were tolerable. As a coach he erred -- and maybe continues to err -- in his relentless need to control every aspect of every moment of every game, as opposed to relaxing and, in turn, allowing his team to relax.

But his style is his business. So is his practice of scheduling an array of patsies, although that situation improved a little bit this season.

It's when you don't beat those patsies that trouble arrives, and, let's face it, Reno is a basketball patsy by Las Vegas standards.

Yet here were the Rebels looking awful in losing to their northern rival and here is the new reality: Barring a drastic reversal, the Rebels will have to win the Mountain West Conference championship to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. And it is, of course, the NCAA Tournament that serves as the focal point of any team's season.

In UNLV's case, with four starters back from last season's 23-8 team, there once were bigger goals than merely landing an NCAA Tournament berth. There was talk of cracking the top 25 and regaining some of the program's long lost prestige.

But the top 25 is now out of the question. Maybe regaining that lost prestige is too.

Maybe what we have here is the beginning of the end for this particular coach. That seems drastic, but after what happened the other night anything's possible.