UNLV home city advantage not what it was

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | 10:08 a.m.

Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery was busy making his way though the muggy triple-digit heat outside of Durango High School on Tuesday afternoon when he was quizzed by a reporter.

"Does UNLV enjoy a big recruiting advantage because the 400-team Big Time Tournament is being played in Las Vegas this week?" Montgomery was asked.

"Not with the heat like this," Montgomery said with a smile.

But with more than 3,900 high school basketball players in town from 43 states and several foreign nations to compete in what has become the nation's premier summer prep basketball tournament, it can be assumed that the Rebels will benefit from the exposure almost as much as the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

"I think most kids know about Vegas already," Montgomery said. "(But) if the kid has never been here to see the glamour of it all and then gets to see it and everything, and it appeals to him, sure it would be an advantage (for UNLV). But I don't think otherwise it really is that big of an advantage."

One major reason for that is an NCAA rule passed two years ago that banned unofficial off-campus visits during July.

"Before that rule was put in it was definitely a huge advantage to have the Big Time Tournament here," longtime UNLV assistant coach Dave Rice said. "After his team was eliminated, a kid and his parents could stop by the campus for an unofficial visit and sit down with the staff and tour the facilities. But this is the second summer since the rule was passed that we can't do that."

Rice said Rebels coaches could establish a bond with potential recruits and their parents before the new July dead period was enacted.

"It was a good starting point for us toward trying to get a kid to come here on an official visit," he said.

New Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg, who previously was the head coach at Long Beach State and South Florida and has been scouting the Las Vegas summer tournament for almost two decades, said the rule definitely has cut into UNLV's hometown advantage this week.

"The problem is that kids here can't go on their campus now with the new rule," Greenberg said. "Obviously, (a prospect) still gets to see all that Las Vegas has to offer ... the lifestyle, the energy and the culture. But in terms of being able to sit down and talk to (UNLV's) coaches like the old days, now they can't even go on campus."

That's a big difference from the early days of the Big Time back in the 1980s and early '90s when the event was on UNLV's campus in the North and South Gyms. Several years the championship games were in the Thomas & Mack Center before the NCAA stepped in and ruled that summer tournaments must be off Division I campuses.

"I can remember one year when Rollie (Massimino) was coach here," Greenberg said. "The rules were different back then. They even had a hospitality room and reception for all the AAU coaches. So that was really a huge advantage for UNLV."

"I was playing with the Westside Blazers with Corey Gaines back then," said Nevada-Reno assistant David Carter, a former all-City point guard at famed Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. "But back then I don't think it was such a big thing to go on the campus at UNLV for us as much as it was for us to go on the campus at UCLA or USC. To be honest, we were more happy just to be playing in front of college coaches."

Carter echoes Greenberg's comments that the new rule banning unofficial off-campus visits in July has taken away some of UNLV's advantage of having the Big Time here.

Still, it's an advantage Carter wouldn't mind having if Big Time officials ever decided to beat the heat and head north to Reno and Lake Tahoe in July.

"Oh, definitely," Carter said. "You want to have kids be able to see your campus and see the town and meet the people in your city. That would definitely be big for us. But,unfortunately, I can't really see that happening."

Until then, it's still advantage UNLV.

"Even with the new rule it's a positive to have the tournament here in town for us," Rice said. "Just having all these kids and their parents in town here for a week is good for us."