Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

UNLV assistant works long, strange hours to land top recruits

Bishop Gorman vs. Findlay Prep: Jan. 25, 2014

Las Vegas Sun

UNLV head coach Dave Rice and assistant coach Todd Simon talk during the Bishop Gorman vs. Findlay Prep basketball game Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014, at South Point. Gorman won 76-72 in overtime. Rice’s brother Grant Rice is the Gorman coach, while Simon previously coached Findlay Prep.

It’s 5:15 a.m. The rain spits sideways against a rented Nissan Altima that Todd Simon is steering north on Interstate 95 toward New Haven, Conn. The rest of the Rebels flew home from New York the day before, but UNLV basketball’s top assistant coach had another stop to make, then a 10-hour travel day to get back in time for practice.

There’s a lot of glamour in the coaching profession. This isn’t it.

Recruiting is considered an offseason task, but the truth is, it never stops. There’s always a game to attend, a text to send or an ear to bend, all in the hopes of sifting through enough rough to find your next diamond.

In many ways, UNLV has moved past scrounging around for talent, and Simon is a major reason for it. UNLV coach Dave Rice started in 2010-11 and has hauled in seven top-50 players out of high school, including two top-10 recruits ­­— Findlay Prep products Anthony Bennett and Rashad Vaughn. The latter anchors the current set of Rebel freshmen, ranked by Rivals as the fifth-best recruiting class in the country. Simon was instrumental in landing Vaughn.

Simon, 34, earned his master’s degree at UNLV and worked as a graduate assistant on coach Lon Kruger’s staff before joining the initial Findlay Prep staff in 2006. When Bennett was recruited, Simon was an observer, watching the process from the player’s side of the table. With Vaughn, Simon was the aggressor, using to his advantage years of watching Pilots react to different recruiting strategies.

Remember when Bishop Gorman High targets Stephen Zimmerman and Chase Jeter each received almost 100 UNLV recruiting letters in a single day? That was Simon’s idea. The same haul showed up for Vaughn.

That’s big-game hunting, but teams don’t win with only that level of player. So a day after UNLV managed a 1-1 split in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in Brooklyn, Simon stayed back, away from his family for an extra day, to search for a role player or anyone who might deserve a second look.

•••

Driving to a tournament, Simon snaps open a package of sunflower seeds, and dust shoots up, covering the steering wheel. A handful of those seeds, a large Starbucks coffee and a Diet Coke are all Simon eats until a late-night pizza session after the games are done. It’s easier to go hungry and stay on schedule than risk missing a play that makes a kid worth pursuing.

The tournament is the National Prep Showcase at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven. The final day lacks star power, but Simon wants to be there anyway. West Coast coaches rarely get to see these top prep school teams in the same building.

Simon takes a seat along one baseline. He’s wearing one of the UNLV sweatsuits the school provides — easier to be seen by players and acquaintances in the crowd. Simon has a long list of contacts, and in the few hours he’s there, more than a dozen people — high school and college coaches, national reporters — chat him up.

The event’s online program boasts it has attracted more than 100 college coaches each of the past eight seasons and proves it with a photo featuring a bored-looking John Calipari of Kentucky and his former top assistant Orlando Antigua on the phone. Antigua now wears the South Florida colors that could have belonged to Rice and, possibly, Simon.

During a frenzied 48 hours in March, Rice was offered a raise to take over at South Florida before agreeing to an extension and slight raise to stay at UNLV. His biggest leverage seemed to be the incoming recruits, who likely would have followed Rice or Simons had they left.

Simon joined the staff in July 2013, filling Justin Hutson’s vacancy at a base salary of $150,000. The offseason shuffle bumped that up to $212,000, the same as fourth-year coach Stacey Augmon. First-year assistant Ryan Miller makes $150,000.

Since getting the raise, Simon has helped the Rebels sign two top-100 players in the class of 2015 — Derrick Jones (42) and Jalen Poyser (84) — and Findlay Prep class of 2016 forward Justin Jackson (32).

Simon’s recruiting system is organized chaos. He buys the tournament packet and makes notations for almost every player on the floor, then logs more detailed notes when he gets home. He keeps a running notebook on his iPhone, which never is out of reach and rarely out of juice, and created a gmail account to send himself information about recruits and events.

At home, Simon keeps a large file folder in which he tosses things he likes. Watching a game with his sons, ages 3 and 1, he sees a well-designed play. Diagram it, and throw it in the folder. Hear a quote to use later? Jot it down, and throw it in.

The folder gets organized annually, though little is thrown out. Simon still is young in coaching and never knows what he might need in the future.

•••

Most of the prospects in Connecticut are in the class of 2016 or 2017. With few primary targets, Simon is here mostly to see what he sees.

A big part of coaching is showing up. You never know what’s going to happen, and on this particular day, what happens is Travis Atson.

Atson dominated for South Kent (Conn.). The Brooklyn native, a three-star recruit on Rivals, grabbed seven rebounds and played solid defense to accompany the 31 points he made with jumpers, driving layups and powerful dunks, including a poster-quality jam over Vermont Academy’s 6-foot-11 center. It was the type of performance a coach hopes for but never is guaranteed.

Simon has learned to trust his eyes and instincts.

In April 2013, Simon went to Hampton, Va., to see a tournament like this one and dozens before it. He went to see Mac Irvin Fire’s Ray Doby, who was considering Findlay Prep. The roster also included Cliff Alexander (Kansas) and Jalen Brunson (Villanova), but the guy Simon walked away thinking about was a lanky scorer off the bench named Pat McCaw.

That meeting would be the first domino that led McCaw to UNLV, though neither Simon nor McCaw knew it at the time.

Per NCAA rules, coaches aren’t allowed to discuss potential recruits, but this year, it’s clear Atson, the 6-foot-5 guard in the class of 2016, is on UNLV’s radar. There’s also no in-person contact during an NCAA quiet period, but Simon followed Atson on Twitter shortly after the game and got an immediate follow back.

McCaw now is one of UNLV’s bright spots, developing in his first 10 games from the least heralded guy in the class to a productive two-way player. Who knows what type of college player Atson will be or where he’ll commit? But every coach who walked in that gym, whether or not he went in looking for Atson, walked away interested.

And few have the Rebels’ recent recruiting success.

•••

It’s Monday morning in Denver. One flight from Connecticut down, another to Las Vegas to go. Some fitful sleep helped Simon recover from the rainy drive, and with practice a few hours away, he knows what he wants to work on.

Over steak and eggs washed down with Mountain Dew, Simon tries to cue Synergy Sports Technology on his iPad to review every point the Rebels allowed on baseline out-of-bounds plays so far this season. The Wi-Fi at Timberline Steaks & Grille isn’t cooperating.

In between the recruiting — both looking for future players and checking in with current commits — Simon is responsible for on-court instruction, too. This is where many say UNLV has come up short under Rice, who already has brought more four-star players to the program than any coach since Jerry Tarkanian.

The staff knows talent needs to translate onto the court more consistently and in bigger games. If they come up short, it won’t be for lack of effort.

Don’t call it a grind, though. Simon won’t. It’s a common phrase basketball players use, particularly those in the age bracket he’s recruiting, but even though he’s fluent in teen speak, that’s not one Simon uses.

He has been on the grind before, working in Michigan at a factory that makes pool cues. There was sawdust everywhere and a boss over his shoulder barking about every little knot, crack and imperfection.

Compared with that, long hours and weird travel schedules to watch kids chase wins don’t seem that grinding.

“When you can do kid stuff as an adult,” Simon says, “that’s not bad.”

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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