Columnist Dean Juipe: UNLV awaits right man, great coach

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 10:31 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.

Rest assured, someone with the proper credentials will step forward and accept the job of coaching the UNLV men's basketball team.

He'll be sharp, dashing, witty and overflowing with expertise.

He will come without any excess or negative baggage and he'll be insightful enough to wonder why no one else with similar qualifications beat him to the punch.

He'll have been familiar with the school's attempts at luring Rick Pitino and Rick Majerus, and he'll be fully aware of the more-than-passing interest it expressed in Gene Keady and Billy Tubbs.

He'll have been privy to all of the rumors.

He'll have had the good sense to immediately have eliminated ancillary candidates such as Lionel Hollins and Reggie Theus as serious competitors for the job, and he'll have heard Gary Williams' name and know that one was ridiculous and merely mindless Internet fodder.

He'll have pondered the possibility of a retiree such as Charlie Spoonhour reacquiring the coaching bug and wondered about that, too.

He will ask himself what the primary targets, Pitino and Majerus, saw that turned them away. Is it something he has failed to see? Or did each of them back off for personal reasons, or because they were making a mistake, or because they had been led astray?

Of course he'll think long and hard about what he's getting himself into.

The Rebels, after all, are on probation and laden with NCAA sanctions. Their scholarships have been cut for the next two years and that's an obstacle, no doubt about it.

They also played so lousy this past season, at times as if there was a lack of pride. Sure, they lost the man who recruited them and coached them when Bill Bayno was fired in December, and that had to demoralize the players. And the thought will occur: Why didn't the team rally under its likeable interim coach, Max Good?

But he will dismiss those concerns because he can see the potential of a program that only a decade ago was one of the best in the country. Heck, it's Las Vegas, it's upbeat and the fans can be genuinely enthusiastic.

How hard can it be to lure top-of-the-line players with the bright lights of the Strip so near at hand and with the Rebels still sporting an exotic and attractive reputation?

He will tell himself the good far outweighs the bad. He will ask "Where do I sign?"

And the announcement of his coming to terms with the school will be just what it and the community and the city's 10,000 doctors ordered. UNLV and its supporters will rejoice and anticipate living happily ever after, their favorite team back with a vengeance.

Tickets for the 2001-02 season will go on sale and be briskly snapped up, not so much because the Rebels will be great right off the bat but because fans will want to secure their seats for the spectacular seasons that will inevitably follow.

The bandwagon, deserted for years, will reach its occupant limit and lead to the realization that a rosier picture has seldom been seen.

And Hey Reb, the school's glued-to-the-ground mascot, will sprout wings and fly.