Rice says he’s more excited than ever about future despite difficult season

By Taylor Bern

Thursday, April 2, 2015 | 2 a.m.

The end of the college basketball season is all about meetings. Meetings with players both staying and leaving, meetings with the coaching staff and meetings with the administration.

Usually the latter is a formality, either congratulatory from the athletic director or explanation for how it will get better from the coach sitting on the other side of the desk. Among his many other meetings, UNLV coach Dave Rice had one of those with Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy, only it wasn’t a typical end-of-year discussion.

For weeks there was growing support from key boosters who wanted Rice out after an 18-15 overall record and a seventh-place finish in the Mountain West in his fourth season. Rice entered the meeting as UNLV’s coach under contract through 2019 and, whatever the ultimate deciding factor, exited the same way after spelling out to Kunzer-Murphy his plans for the future.

“I went into the meeting excited about being the head coach at UNLV, and with the understanding that we all want to win,” Rice said from his office Monday, two weeks after being given at least another season at UNLV. “This is big-time basketball and there’s pressure every year. There was pressure my first year, there was pressure last year and they’ll be pressure this coming year and that’s why I wanted the job, because we have the opportunity at UNLV to be relevant in March and that’s my goal.”

UNLV made two trips to the NCAA Tournament in Rice’s first two years and lost both times in the Round of 64 as the higher seed. While recruiting rankings have risen, the Rebels’ win total has dropped each season and they’ve now gone seven seasons without winning an NCAA Tournament game or the Mountain West conference tournament and 15 years without a regular-season conference title.

Halting at least one of those streaks might be required for Rice to make it past the 2015-16 season, though he declined to discuss any specifics about his conversation with Kunzer-Murphy. At the very least it’s understood that close losses, injuries and youth won’t be available crutches.

“I’ve articulated my vision of how good I think we can be, how excited I am about the group that we have in place, the experience that they got this past season and the fact that I’m the first one to say that we are not satisfied with what our win-loss record was this past season,” Rice said.

How much of that group returns remains to be seen. There have been national reports that freshman Rashad Vaughn has signed with an agent. Vaughn’s father, Troy Vaughn, denies that any decision has been made, but UNLV must prepare to lose both Vaughn and sophomore Christian Wood should they decide to enter the NBA Draft. Wood is pegged as a late first-round selection, while Vaughn is in the second round of most mock drafts.

The Rebels already know they have two spots to fill as freshman Dantley Walker will transfer in search of more playing time. His scholarship will be available along with ones from Kendall Smith’s transfer and the graduation of Cody Doolin and Jelan Kendrick, and so far UNLV has two players — guard Jalen Poyser and forward Derrick Jones — joining the program this year.

Two local possibilities to fill those slots are Bishop Gorman High’s Stephen Zimmerman, who has UNLV as one of his five remaining schools, and Findlay Prep’s Justin Jackson, a class of 2016 commit who might reclassify to 2015. As for the available spots should Vaughn and Wood declare, Rice didn’t seem too worried.

“We have contingency plans,” Rice said. “There’s always the opportunity for a fifth-year transfer, there’s always the opportunity for freshmen that are late available guys, but the core of our group will be back for sure.”

That core includes four freshmen who improved as the season went along, a couple of transfers who spent most of the year practicing with the team and junior Daquan Cook, who’s been cleared after missing the season with a torn ACL. The backcourt’s development will be interesting to follow as senior transfer Jerome Seagears, sophomore-to-be Pat McCaw and Poyser all seem capable of playing both point and shooting guard positions, something Rice said he liked because of the versatility of having multiple ball-handlers on the floor.

How best to fit all of these pieces together is one of many tasks ahead for the offseason, and it’s especially important this time around considering Rice’s tenuous job security. For now the Rebels must focus on figuring out exactly who those pieces will be and following through with the plans and positivity that Rice said came out of all his player meetings.

“This year’s message was about the foundation that was built this year and how excited I am,” Rice said. “I’ve never been this excited about a season as I am this one coming up.”

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