Wood excels in post role during Rebels’ open scrimmage

By Taylor Bern

Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 | 5:10 p.m.

Dave Rice’s baseline hope for today’s scrimmage was relatively simple to accomplish: UNLV’s coach wanted his guys to show improvement from their previous public appearance a little more than two weeks ago at the Scarlet and Gray Showcase. Anyone who saw both would say that was a success.

“We had a lot better offensive flow,” Rice said.

Beyond that the goal was to drill in the tenets of a fast pace and good shot selection, with varying levels of success, as nearly 1,000 fans cheered on for about an hour. The Rebels, who haven't had much practice time in the Thomas & Mack Center because of other events, split into two teams and then traded players at different points to create different matchups.

Similar to that Showcase, two of the players who stood out the most were sophomores Kendall Smith and Christian Wood, who led all scorers with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting. The stat to monitor with Wood all year will be his outside shots, and today at the Mack he was 1-of-4, a relatively low percentage of his total shots.

“The biggest thing for Chris is that he’s accepted his role,” Rice said. “His role is to be a low-post, mid-post presence on both ends of the floor and then be selective when facing up and shooting.”

Smith’s shooting wasn’t nearly as good (3-for-11), and he actually had one more turnover than assists, but he was playing with the type of speed and energy that Rice has been requesting. The next step for Smith as he prepares for Wednesday’s home exhibition game against Florida National is to work on controlling his emotions if his shot isn’t falling.

“My teammates are watching me. People in the crowd are watching me,” Smith said. “I want to give them positive energy to feed off of.”

While those two look forward to expanded roles this season, Dantley Walker is looking forward to whatever he can get.

He redshirted last season, so these were the most extensive minutes Walker had played in public since high school three years ago. He responded with a 5-for-8 shooting barrage beyond the arc, with each make getting loud cheers. Even his misses felt like some of the most anticipated shots of the day.

“It was fun to get out there and finally get some minutes,” Walker said.

Last year’s exhibition game turned into an omen for the year’s struggles as the Rebels lost to Dixie State. Very few players remain from that game, with the new group trying to use each day to figure out how to better play together.

In that regard, today was a good day.

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