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Connection helped get him here, but Hoffman proves valuable for Rebels
Junior walk-on doing his part to help prepare UNLV for season with lofty expectations
UNLV junior walk-on Scott Hoffman works during pick-ups last summer at the Thomas & Mack Center. Hoffman made his way to UNLV through a childhood connection between his father and coach Lon Kruger, and became a valuable practice commodity for the Rebels.
Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 | 2:38 a.m.
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- UNLV junior guard, Scott Hoffman, talks about the the growth and progress of the program he has witnessed during his time on the team.
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- Hoffman talks about being a walk-on in which the only game time comes during practice, making the top players better.
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- Hoffman on the possibility of playing overseas for a third-division team.
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- Hoffman shares how he would like to cap his career at UNLV.
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Scott Hoffman rolls his eyes and tries to slink out the nearest door whenever his father, Don, and UNLV coach Lon Kruger reunite and start yapping about the old days.
“Like little kids,” said Scott, a fourth-year junior guard for the Rebels.
Inevitably, Don Hoffman and Kruger, baseball teammates at Kansas State, end up talking about a kid named Goober. Better ask coach, said Scott Hoffman.
Kruger laughed.
“One of those classic baseball catchers,” he said of Goober. “Nothing that unusual. Just a blue-collar type.”
Don Hoffman elaborated Monday night from his home in Hays, Kan., 10 minutes from where he grew up.
A 6-foot-4, 230-pound reserve catcher, Goober wasn’t so diligent about training.
“He’d come back from Christmas break about 280,” said Don Hoffman, laughing. “He had to get away from those baked potatoes. He was larger than life. Goober, he partied outrageously. Just everything.
“Everything.”
On March 5, 1988, Don Hoffman sat across from Kruger when he coached Kansas State’s final game inside the antiquated-but-boisterous Ahearn Fieldhouse.
Missouri players and coach Norm Stewart were showered with boos.
At one point, Stewart and Kruger went toe-to-toe arguing an official’s call. Kruger turned, as the story goes, but Stewart said some disparaging words about Jack Hartman, who had coached Kruger at Kansas State.
“I knew Jack Hartman,” Hoffman said. “He’d eat nails. There wasn’t anything he was afraid of, that’s for sure.”
In a flash, Kruger wheeled around, grabbed Stewart by his necktie and then released it as quickly as he had snatched it.
“I think that’s pretty accurate,” Hoffman said. “The place went nuts. K-State pulled that one out. My oldest son, Lee, was 7. He was on my shoulders the whole game so he could see. Everyone stood.
“No, Lon has never said anything about that. He never says anything bad about anyone.”
The long friendship between Don Hoffman and Kruger led to Scott Hoffman walking onto the UNLV program.
He was wooed by junior colleges, Division-II programs and Creighton, but Scott wanted to hone his game and “beef up,” as Kruger likes to say, in one season in Las Vegas.
To his credit, Scott Hoffman has stuck around UNLV, choosing instead to press the main players in practice so they’re ready for games.
He has played 49 total minutes in his Rebels career, scoring four points. Most of that was achieved on one shot, a 3-pointer against Norfolk State on Dec. 18, 2006.
In Australia this summer, he went 7-for-22 from 3-point range in the Rebels’ six games. Hoffman will graduate next spring, then begin working toward his master’s degree in business administration.
“He’s always in such a good mood, you’d think he always starts and plays 40 minutes,” said senior guard Wink Adams. “I think he’s the heart of the team. He’s running the point now and making good passes.
“He can play on a lot of ball clubs. Unfortunately, he doesn’t play a lot of minutes. But everyone knows what he can do. He’s very valuable to the team.”
No Rebel smiles more often than the 6-3, 180-pound Hoffman, who has put on 30 pounds since arriving at UNLV.
“I just love playing for coach Kruger,” he said. “I’m blessed. I’m lucky. I get along with everybody.”
Hoffman, 22, takes it kind of personal if others believe his father’s relationship with Kruger is the sole reason why he’s on the UNLV hoops team.
“I don’t know about all that,” he said. “Obviously, there’s a connection. I don’t want to say because of my dad I’m here. I don’t like that. I guess people could see that.
“But I definitely don’t think coach would put me on the team if I wasn’t good enough.”
Kruger said it’s debatable who was the better player at Kansas State, him or Don Hoffman. I always thought it was a passed ball, Kruger said. Don always thought it was a wild pitch.
Don Hoffman said there’s no debate.
“Lon’s a pressure guy,” he said. “He came through whenever he had to come through. The right time, right pitch, right stop at the right time.”
They played against each other in high school, Don at Victoria and Lon at Silver Lake. As freshmen at Kansas State, Hoffman caught Kruger.
“He was sneaky fast,” Hoffman said. “He’d set you up with great offspeed pitches. He had a great curveball.”
As a senior, Kruger had a sore pitching arm. So he played second base, and in the bottom of the seventh against Oklahoma he turned a key double play to beat the Sooners.
Hoffman’s eventual wife, Gretta, shared a dorm room with Kruger’s eventual wife, Barb, at Putnam Hall.
When Don Hoffman visits Las Vegas, his son’s teammates pelt him with questions about Kruger’s playing days.
“He did everything right,” Don Hoffman tells Scott’s friends. “He had one step on everybody. He wasn’t overly quick or strong, but there were no dumb moves. He was the real deal.”
The Hoffmans visited the Krugers when Lon coached the Florida Gators. Scott Hoffman vaguely recalls playing with a young Kevin Kruger when both were 8 or 9. They saw alligators on a nearby farm.
“How many kids get to do what Scott has done?” said Gretta Hoffman. “It’s wonderful. Lonny was going to get him beefed up to prepare him for other schools, but Scott just fell in love with UNLV.”
Sitting on the bench during that Sweet 16 run two seasons ago was incredible for Scott Hoffman, but he envisions bigger scenarios for himself and the Rebels.
With the depth and experience on this season’s team, Hoffman sees a deeper run in the NCAA tournament. He even dreams of making a basket on the game’s biggest stage.
Don Hoffman harkens back to that last game at Ahearn.
“That’s what I want to see at UNLV,” he said. “I want to see it get crazy.”
Discussion: 7 comments so far…
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HAHA! It's so easy to do and has even gotten a couple of the guys that come to practice. That's KW tossing up the three in the picture. Scotty is in the left corner watching it.
Great article. With the depth of this years team, it's going to be harder for Scotty or Rob K to get minutes, even in mop up scenarios. Yet there is no doubt that Scotty is the beating heart of that team. It's players like him that create a great environment to learn the game and succeed.
I'm guessing he'll be doing a graduate assistant stint with Coach Kruger? I can see Scotty heading a team one day.
Great catch Mee... I don't take the fotos and rarely see them, but you are correct.
You are also correct in assessing the walk-on situation. Those games for those guys is behind the scenes, every day at practice, trying to jam the regulars and make life tough for them. That only makes the squad better during game time.
Hats off to Kruger, too. I truly feel how you treat walk-ons is a great gauge of what you're like as a coach and person. Kruger treats these guys with class. Steve Jones and Todd Hanni, too.
This isn't a shot at them, but that's four-fifths of one heck of a pick-up team!
Playing time will be rare for them, but their payoff is during the week, at practice.
Not sure about GA with Kruger or coaching for Hoffman. If, say, a third-division team in Turkey rings, he'd like to pursue hoops. We talked about that specific situation. There's worse things he could do than earn money playing for some lower-division team in Europe.
Ultimately, however, he wants to get his MBA and strat cranking as a businessman.
thanks Mee!
Hey Rob not sure if you caught it yesterday but Andy Katz over at ESPN.com has the Rebs ranked 24th in his pre-season top 25. Not much chatter on the boards yet though, besides some BYU guy complaining about the home court advantage in the MWC tourney"like usual
I saw what Katz wrote, and I thought what he had to say was pretty fair, especially the part about the Louisville game being the key to gauging just what this UNLV team is made of before MWC play starts.
Yep, thought Andy's analysis along with the placement was fair. I have to admit I was pretty shocked when I say the mention. Sure we here in Vegas know the potential of this team but I'm still not expecting the rest of the country to know yet. I truly think we shouldn't crack it until we see how we look after playing USD, Cal, UTEP, Cincy/FSU and UNR (that would give us early to mid December). And depending on how we play UofA and Louisville should determine whether we stay in there. I don't want to over-rate, over-hype and over-exaggerate this team. It's good to fly under the radar :)
This is awesome. Rebel basketball is on the way back. Articles like this keep me coming back to the Sun. Good job guys, keep it up.
Thanks yd!
And SMB, I completely and totally agree with you on flying under the radar. There is A LOT to be said for folks either not knowing about you or not taking you as seriously as they should. THAT is priceless.
What anybody outside of Vegas thinks of this team, though, should be taken with a grain of salt. From afar, you can look at names and stats and think you know what you're looking at. But they don't.
That's why it matters most what true fans like you folks see, hear, think and feel. You are the ones who are up close and personal with this squad, what make them tick, their chemistry and how they like to play.
Case in point: How many people picked Kent St to beat UNLV in the first round last season? EVERYONE. Do you even remember a handful of peopel, national types, who favored UNLV?
Hardly anyone. Yet, if you truly knew that team, you KNEW they'd look across the court before tip-off, FINALLY see some foes their own size and they were licking their chops for that reason alone. That was the easiest game to predict, in my book. Yet how many folks really knew that? Outside of Vegas? None.
Those folks just like to hear their own voices. When it comes down to it, they're all hot air.
That's the beauty of college hoops. Rankings mean squat. It's played out in the tournament, and everything else is moot.
thanks gents...
keep writing