Ron Kantowski on how the amount of leftover pizza is inversely proportionate to the level of interest in the UNLV basketball team

Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

As traditions go, Saturday's Meet the Rebels scrimmage and pizza fest at the Thomas & Mack Center doesn't register with most basketball zealots, although I am sure that Rick Majerus would love the pizza part of it.

It's not exactly Krzyzewskiville at Duke, where fanatical Blue Devils fans disguised as students pitch tents the nights before big games to get a front-row seat.

It's not exactly Midnight Madness at Kentucky, where more than 23,000 fanatics disguised as Wildcat basketball fans turn out to watch the first practice of the season and take down the license plate number of the head coach just in case, you know, he doesn't win 30 games and/or make it back to the Final Four.

Krugerville wouldn't work at UNLV. We don't pitch tents late at night because there is money to be won at that hour. And cheap breakfast to be eaten. Midnight Madness doesn't work for the same reason. In fact, if there are three things that don't work most in Las Vegas, it would be blue jeans in nightclubs, downtown shopping malls and Midnight Madness. Oh yeah, and indoor football .

It's not that we don't care about college basketball. We care more about college basketball here than most sports, owing to that 1990 championship banner hanging from the rafters of the Thomas & Mack Center and the towel-chomping gnome of a coach, the one who should be in the basketball hall of fame, who put it there.

We just don't care enough about it to watch returning seniors and blue-chip recruits and walk-ons from the Heartland with more ambition than talent run the three-man weave at 12:01 a.m.

I used to think that was a bad thing. Now I'm not so sure. For starters, I think it's a good thing we're not Lexington, Ky. Nothing against Lexington, but what do you do there when it's not basketball season and the ponies aren't running up the road at Churchill Downs?

In Las Vegas we cheer the basketball team when it's appropriate. Like when it's winning. Or not playing Kennesaw State. In some places they call that being a fair-weather fan. But this isn't some places. This is Las Vegas. There are things to do here. There always will be things to do here, even if that walk-on from the Heartland can't hit the broadside of his father's barn with his jump shot.

Lon Kruger, starting his fourth year as UNLV's basketball coach, grew up in the Heartland and never had trouble hitting the broadside of the barn. Or, for that matter, anything inside of one, especially if it was a peach basket hanging from the wall in Lawrence or Columbia or Lincoln or Stillwater.

But he also knows that like Dorothy and Toto, too, he's not in Kansas anymore. So when he started the difficult job of trying to rebuild the Rebels into what they once were, he started slow after installing new spark plugs in the bandwagon.

He thought he might get a few students and fans to jump back on board by opening a preseason practice and sending out for pizza. Having once been to college, he knew that college kids can't say no to free pizza, even if they must first endure watching returning seniors and blue chip recruits and walk-ons from the Heartland throw the basketball out-of-bounds for an hour or two to get it.

I was there the first time Kruger tried to transform the Thomas & Mack Center into Pizza Hut. There was more pizza than students and fans. Everybody got to take home an entire pie, which is good if you're hungry and starved for cash and studying for a calculus final. But bad if you're a new coach trying to build a fan base.

It was different on Saturday, at this year's Meet the Rebels scrimmage and pizza fest. There must have been 1,500 on hand - fans, not pizzas. And the pies were gone before the players finished signing autographs.

The fans showed up to catch a glimpse of the young Rebels, who won 30 games and made it all the way to the Sweet 16 last year when they were a whole lot older, thanks to guys now playing ball in Turkey or some other faraway land.

That team wasn't the most talented to throw the ball into the peach basket - hence, the basketball passports - but it was easy to like and Rebels fans held it near and dear to their hearts, like a teddy bear or a favorite blanket. Or a hot pair of dice.

Last year's team was picked to finish sixth in the Mountain West. This year's is picked to finish third , which, if you look at the numbers, would make about as much sense as Egyptian hieroglyphics, were Kruger not in charge. Because if there was anything we learned last year, it's that Kruger knows his teacups and nooses, which is how the pharaohs drew their X's and O's.

Predictions count as much as Joe Darger baskets during October but here's mine: This team will struggle a bit early, especially when Louisville and Arizona come to town, will be very competitive during the Mountain West season and may even run the table in the conference tournament and sneak into the Big Dance once again as a double-digit seed, finishing with a couple of ram horns, or whatever the hieroglyphic symbol is for 20-something wins.

And next year, when the Rebels should be really good, it will even be harder to get a slice of pepperoni than it was on Saturday.