Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Ron Kantowski: Dedication came a little late for Rebels

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.

I guess it was the right thing to say when the cameras were rolling. But anybody who has followed Team Turmoil -- a k a the UNLV's men's basketball team -- probably got a big chuckle when several Rebels told Channel 8 they were dedicating the remainder of the season to their former coach Charlie Spoonhour.

This was last Tuesday, not more than a couple of hours after Spoonhour, 64, decided to re-retire citing health problems. Apparently most of those were brought on by the stress of trying to coach selfish players who refused to throw the ball to one another.

Not that there's a problem with the Rebels dedicating the season to Spoonhour. Only they should have done it on Oct. 15, when they started practice.

If they had, he'd still be here instead of on his way to St. Pete for Cardinals spring training.

There won't be a committee, per se, to identify candidates for the UNLV basketball vacancy, although three community leaders are said to have the number to the bat phone in athletic director Mike Hamrick's office.

Local auto dealership magnate Cliff Findlay, Las Vegas philanthropist Jim Rogers and Mark Alden, the university system regent who spends a lot of time in Hamrick's ear at Rebels games, are among those with whom the AD has chatted or plans to.

If the first two are directly involved, it would partly explain why UNLV may be in position to pay the new man as much as $1 million annually. And Alden could be the conduit between a marquee guy such as Cincinnati's Bob Huggins, whose name keeps popping up like the coach's blood pressure during a tight game with Louisville. Alden and Huggins are friends.

In the "top tips" section of his TV column, USA Today's Rudy Martzke credited CBS college basketball studio analyst Seth Davis for revealing that former Rebels standout Reggie Theus is at the top of UNLV's short list to replace Spoonhour.

(Insert quiz show wrong-answer buzzer sound here.)

Hamrick is on record, more than once, stating that the Rebels' new basketball boss will have head coaching experience -- at the NCAA Division I level, not ABA 2000. That would remove Theus and all other former Rebels from consideration, with the exception of Sidney Green, the head man at Florida Atlantic.

But Green's nine-year record as an NCAA head coach is 92-162, which rules him out.

So as far as "hop tips" go, I'd place Martzke's alongside "Seabiscuit in the fifth" and whatever change Jack Benny used to leave on the lunch counter.

Everybody has an opinion regarding who the Rebels' next coach should be and here's the short list favored by Jimmy Dykes, the ESPN basketball analyst and Irv Brown's successor as the foremost expert on basketball in the Mountain Time Zone:

Brad Painter, Southern Illinois; Mike Anderson, Alabama Birmingham; Billy Gillispie, UTEP; and Steve McClain, Wyoming.

Like Dykes, I think a proven mid-major coach should be the Rebels' focus but of the four guys he mentioned, only McClain has been at his current school for more than two seasons.

As for the wild-eyed McClain, which team was he coaching at the Thomas & Mack Center Monday night, Shirts or Skins?

According to a Salt Lake City columnist, Kerry Rupp's status at Utah was switched from "acting" coach to "interim" coach after the Utes totally screwed up the final sequence in a rare home loss to overachieving Air Force on Saturday.

With the game tied and having called time out to set up the last shot, the Utes were looking at no worse than overtime. But Utah settled for an awful shot, a wild runner by Tim Drisdom that slammed off the backboard with about six seconds to go. Air Force's Tim Keller managed to slap the rebound down the floor, where teammate Joel Gerlach beat a couple of Utes to it and was fouled as he raced to beat the clock on a layup.

Gerlach made both free throws, and Rupp began updating his resume.

Around the horn

Former KVBC Channel 3 sports anchor Colin Cowherd has landed a major gig, as his sports talk radio show will replace Tony Kornheiser's on ESPN Radio beginning March 29. Cowherd, 40, currently hosts a popular sports talk show at KFXX in Portland. ... Other than BYU beating Oklahoma State and Colorado State knocking off up-and-down Purdue, quality wins have been hard to come by for the Mountain West this season. Too bad TCU won't be joining the original eight until the year after next, as the Horned Frogs blew out then-No. 10 Louisville 71-46 Thursday. ... The Lady Rebels' 79-65 loss at Colorado State Saturday night was a huge blow to the team's NCAA tournament hopes, as it now appears UNLV will have to run the table at the MWC tournament in Denver to get in. The Lady Rebels' RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) has slipped to No. 76, only third-high est among conference teams behind Utah (No. 39) and CSU (No. 72). ... Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman told me that if ! the 51s want a new ballpark, he's all for remodeling and/or sprucing up Cashman Field. But he said building a new Triple-A facility would send the message that Las Vegas remains "a minor league town" at the same time the city is trying to position itself for a major league franchise. "Let 'em go to Henderson," Goodman said of his offer to the 51s that apparently, wasn't too good to refuse.

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