Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Rebels playing Jay’s way

The fans in the Thomas & Mack Center are still chanting "Spoooooon!" when UNLV's men's basketball coach is announced before each game. But that's where the similarities between interim Rebels head coach Jay Spoonhour and the man he replaced three games ago, father Charlie Spoonhour, seem to end these days.

Unlike most of the past three seasons, the Runnin' Rebels are doing just that ... running.

Going into Saturday afternoon's game at first place Air Force, UNLV has had back-to-back 90-plus point scoring games for the first time in two years. The Rebels defeated Colorado State, 94-79, on Saturday and followed that up Monday with a 95-80 blowout of Wyoming.

A faster, up-tempo style of play is just one of several changes that the younger Spoonhour has implemented during his nine days as UNLV's interim head coach.

Among the other alterations Spoonhour has made:

Unlike his father, who routinely kept practices in the 75- to 90-minute range, Jay Spoonhour has been having workouts that have lasted between two and two-and a half hours.

"Practices are more intense and longer," junior swingman Romel Beck said. "They're more like the kind of practices we had when I was at L.A. City (College). We'd go four hours there."

The Rebels have been breaking up their practice regime by doing windsprints for about five to 10 minutes.

"I haven't run like that since I was at Georgetown," senior guard Demetrius Hunter said with a smile after Wednesday's practice.

"We've got to ready for the (Mountain West Conference) tournament," Spoonhour said. "We've to be in shape to run up there (in Denver's mile-high altitude) for three straight days."

Some of UNLV's practices resembled Los Angeles frustrating rush hour traffic under his father ... go forward for about three or four seconds before hitting the brakes to have a mistake pointed out and corrected. But Jay Spoonhour normally waits for a play to finish completely before pointing out any errors that were made.

This is perhaps the biggest difference between Jay and his father so far and the change the players mention first when they are asked about the team's recent turnaround.

"We're just getting out and running and taking the first good shot we can instead of slowing things downs," junior forward Odartey Blankson said. "We've got a team with guys who like to run and guys who like to play an up and down tempo. Jay realizes that and has kind of set it up so we can play like that now."

"Everybody's playing more free now," Beck added. "We just go out there and play and don't worry about turning the ball over and stuff."

UNLV is 3-0 since son took over for father and the Rebels have moved into first place in the MWC in both scoring offense (74.3) and assists (14.88). The Rebels have had 45 assists in their past two games.

The question now is can they keep it up on a very tough road trip to Air Force, which is a perfect 11-0 and excels in making opponents play their patient halfcourt Princeton-style game, and New Mexico, which has arguably the loudest homecourt in the country at The Pit?

Perhaps an even bigger question is if UNLV continues to put wins and big numbers, will new athletic director Mike Hamrick, who has gone on record as saying he won't discuss potential coaching candidates, give Jay Spoonhour serious consideration for the permanent head coaching job?

"I'd be happy if he took over," Beck said. "I'm comfortable with the coaching staff we have here. The last couple of games you see what we can do when we're out there running, especially with Jay motivating us. I hope he gets a good shot at the job.."

"I wouldn't mind (if Spoonhour gets the job)," Blankson said. "Everybody's comfortable with him. ... We all like Jay. We're all trying to pull it together and hopefully we can continue to change it around, not just for ourselves but also the coaching staff. Hopefully they'll stick around."

Spoonhour said after Monday's night win against Wyoming that he refused to think about what a strong finish would do for his chances of becoming UNLV's next head coach.

"I have no thought about what this means to me personally," he said. "I know it's boring and it's not what anyone wants to hear. But I have no thought about it. It's not fair to the team. I wouldn't tell them to start thinking about who the next coach is going to be. I would want them to concentrate on this team. This team can still do something.

"You owe it a guy like Demetrius Hunter to just coach him and not have anything else weighing on your mind. And that's what I'm doing."

Scary moment in Wednesday's practice saw starting center J.K. Edwards run off the court clutching his right hand. The good news was Edwards later returned to the workout with what was believed to be just a jammed thumb.

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