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March 29, 2024

For UNLV basketball, the time is now

UNLV Basketball Team Players Scrimmage

L.E. Baskow

UNLV’s Rashad Vaughn drives the ball against teammate Dwayne Morgan during a scrimmage on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, at the Thomas & Mack Center.

UNLV Basketball Team Players Scrimmage

The UNLV basketball team's Christian Wood #5 turns the corner on teammate Dwayne Morgan #15 during a scrimmage on Saturday, November 1, 2014. Launch slideshow »

The face of UNLV basketball's upcoming season is a freshman who likely will be in the NBA next year and might not have been here if not for a coaching hire made a year and a half ago.

This is the reality of big-time college basketball in the modern era.

Fourth-year coach Dave Rice has put together one of the best nonconference schedules in the country, with the Rebels slated to play possibly three teams in the preseason ranking’s top five. Taking on that schedule is a roster built largely on a five-player recruiting class considered one of the best in program history; it includes a five-star and two four-star recruits and is ranked No. 5 nationally by Rivals.

“We’ve got enough talent,” Rice said. “A lot of it’s new, but we’ve got enough talent that if we (play hard and together) for a long enough period of time this season, we will have success.”

The face of the team is 6-foot-6 guard Rashad Vaughn, the second-highest-rated high school commit in program history, whom assistant Todd Simon was key in bringing in. But that’s not where the class started. That would be with Baltimore forward Dwayne Morgan, a top-30 prospect recruited by former assistant Heath Schroyer. In three previous seasons, Rice’s staff recruited three top-40 prospects, the same number they have as freshmen this year.

Former coach Lon Kruger was great at getting the most out of his players, but those players’ ceilings limited the Rebels’ potential. There have been many criticisms of Rice but never that his teams have lacked talent.

And that’s why even many of Rice’s critics didn’t want to see him leave in March, when he flirted with a lucrative offer from the University of South Florida. Doing so, though, would would break apart UNLV’s recruiting class, which even the harshest critic didn’t want to see.

Those freshmen will be counted on to produce immediately.

The Rebels replace 77 percent of their player minutes from last year’s roster, but fans have little patience for letting first-year players develop because of last year’s failures. Not only did the Rebels miss the NCAA Tournament, they weren’t even selected for the National Invitation Tournament.

“We don’t have the luxury this year of giving our freshmen a whole year to grow up,” Rice said.

The Rebels don’t have a lot of the resources as teams in power conferences, such as Arizona, Kansas and Stanford, all of which play UNLV this season. UNLV staff fly Southwest Airlines instead of hopping on chartered flights. The university doesn’t issue cellphones to them.

On the recruiting trail, though, those are just excuses. Results are what matter and from Schroyer, who left in March to take over at Tennessee -Martin, to assistants Simon and Ryan Miller, Rice’s staff has accomplished that.

Morgan’s commitment gave the Rebels a starting point. From there, Simon and Rice stayed in the northeast for Boston big man Goodluck Okonoboh, who also was considering Ohio State, Florida, Indiana and Duke.

The key piece, though, is Vaughn, and his recruitment highlights perhaps the one resource advantage UNLV has when it comes head-to-head against the blue bloods in recruiting battles: Findlay Prep. Founded by former player and UNLV booster Cliff Findlay, the program has Rebels connections all over.

As the coach at Findlay Prep, Simon recruited Vaughn. So hiring Simon to replace Justin Hutson last year gave Rice a leg up in landing Vaughn.

“I knew I had a big role on this team,” Vaughn said. “Coach Rice has always told me that he believes in me and he trusts me, so that helped me along the way.”

The Findlay connection is alive and well with two Pilots on the current roster — Vaughn and sophomore Christian Wood — and another, Justin Jackson, committed in the class of 2016. That’s great for the future but more important in the present was Simon getting Patrick McCaw from St. Louis and Miller getting Jordan Cordish from New Orleans to round out this recruiting class.

The pair of 6-foot-6 guards fit the bill of “program guys,” who generally are players who come in without much fanfare but help fill out a lineup for four years. Even more than elite talent, that has been missing from the Rebels under Rice.

Any comparison to classes signed by Jerry Tarkanian are difficult because recruiting rankings weren’t nearly as prevalent in those days, plus Tarkanian tended to bring in more transfers. But it’s safe to say this group, at least on paper, is in the conversation.

Now it’s time for Rice and staff to focus on playing like those teams.

Five (or six) games to watch this season

The most anticipated UNLV basketball game of the upcoming season isn’t on the schedule yet, an absence that will irk a large swath of fans if they don’t get their way in New York City.

If the results fall the way the Rebels want in a couple of weeks, they will get their first meeting with Duke since losing in the 1991 Final Four. It’s not a rivalry since they haven’t played in more than two decades and only one side cares, but many on that side really care.

The Rebels play Stanford on Nov. 21 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, while Duke takes on Temple in the nightcap. If the Rebels and Blue Devils both win — or both lose — they meet the next night.

The possibility of a UNLV-Duke matchup has excited a fan base that remembers the historic clashes between these programs.

But since that game isn’t technically on the schedule, we’ve exempted it from this list of UNLV’s five games to watch this season. Good thing there were plenty of other great options:

    • Vs. Utah

      8:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 20, ESPN2

      The Rebels’ first-ever game on the Strip, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, has become even bigger with the Utes’ season outlook. Utah enters the year ranked No. 25 in the Associated Press poll and picked second in the Pac-12. The only team picked above them? That would be ...

    • Vs. Arizona

      7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 23, CBS Sports Network

      The Wildcats are loaded once again, entering the year at No. 2 and expected to defend their Pac-12 title. UNLV gave Arizona a battle last year in Tucson, and the return trip could be nice holiday entertainment for those who stay in town.

    • Kansas head coach Bill Self is followed by reporters after a news conference in New Orleans, Thursday, March 29, 2012. Kansas is scheduled to play Ohio State in an NCAA tournament Final Four semifinal college basketball game on Saturday.

      At Kansas

      Time TBD, Sunday, Jan. 4, CBS

      Two years ago, the Rebels checked off North Carolina’s Dean Dome, and in January they step into another historic arena, Allen Fieldhouse. This is the first of possibly three straight years playing the Jayhawks, with both teams in the Maui Invitational next season and a return trip to the Thomas & Mack Center coming in 2016-17.

    • At Colorado State

      1 p.m. Feb. 7, CBS Sports Network

      Because of the uneven Mountain West schedule, this trip to Moby Arena is the Rebels’ only meeting with the Rams this year. Both teams expect to compete in the conference race, so this could end up being a key game.

    • San Diego State

      8 p.m. March 4, CBS Sports Network

      This rivalry typically produces some of the best environments that either home team’s arena experiences all season. This late-season matchup, UNLV’s second-to-last regular-season game, could end up being for the conference title.

    Taylor Bern can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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