LAS VEGAS — I got my first look at Josh Pastner’s attempt to revive the UNLV men’s basketball program Tuesday night and it appears to be a work in progress.
A true work in progress.
This is going to take some time and time is not on Pastner’s side.
The Runnin’ Rebels found themselves in a tussle with Montana at the Thomas & Mack Center, which had a lot of empty seats, both downstairs and upstairs given the size of the crowd — 5,553. The ultimate goal is to get those seats filled through winning basketball and that’s the rub right now. UNLV isn’t close to being a winning team. Those who stayed home were the smart ones as the Grizzlies roughed up Pastner’s Rebels, 102-93.
“The bottom line is you score 93 points, you better win the game,” Pastner said. ”Obviously I’m very disappointed with our defense. We were probably too stretched out defensively, so credit to Montana.
“We’ve got to be tougher. In three games so far, we weren’t the tougher team in two of them.”
Pastner brought in 13 new faces and they’re still not all available as injuries during fall camp and the preseason limited his roster. At some point he hopes to have everyone back.
In these days of NIL and Transfer Portal roster-building, I look at UNLV as an expansion team of sorts. New leadership. New players. A competitive league to play in. There’s tradition, yes, some of which goes back to the Jerry Tarkanian days. But when you ask the players about the history of the program, they don’t exactly recite chapter and verse.
That said, it’s going to be up to this group to create its own history and write their own story. So far, it’s a mixed bag — a puzzling opening-night loss to Tennessee-Martin followed by a blowout win over Chattanooga. Tuesday, the Rebels found themselves dealing with a scrappy Montana team which was picked in the preseason poll to finish first in the Big Sky Conference and played with the lead for a good portion of the game thanks to Money Williams, a junior guard from Oakland who was indeed money, leading the way with 29 points.
“We didn’t execute our game plan the way we were supposed to,” said UNLV guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, who led the Rebels with 26 points. “We have a bunch of new guys. We’re trying to put the pieces together."
A cold start offensively for UNLV in the second half found the Rebels down 57-45 less than four minutes in. They were staring at a double-digit deficit for several stretches in the final 20 minutes.
The flaws are evident. Questionable shot selection. Inability to defend for long stretches, either man-to-man or zone. A brick-laying performance at the foul line (17 of 27). An obvious lack of chemistry as you would expect from a new roster.
“We’ve got to figure out our rotation,” Pastner said. “Who’s our point guard? Who’s our backup point guard? Who do we want to bring off the bench?”
Some things you simply can’t rush. But for Pastner, he doesn’t get a long grace period. He’s going to have to find a way to accelerate the learning process with his team and get things more clearly defined. And quickly.
I don’t know what a UNLV practice is like since they’re closed to the media. I’d like to think they work on things like defense and shooting. And maybe in practice they’re doing it right but aren’t able to have it carry over on game night.
But a 1-2 start isn’t going to get the community excited. I’m sure there are some dissatisfied fans who want athletic director Erick Harper to make a coaching change. But that’s not happening. Not three games into the season. To even think that is folly.
Still, with Pastner returning to one of his former head coaching stops when UNLV plays at Memphis Sunday, he’s got a lot of things to get straightened out. Giving up 102 points at home to a Big Sky team that was ranked 197 in the Kenpom rankings shouldn’t sit well with anyone. And jacking up a bunch of 3s trying to catch up usually doesn’t work either. But when you’re young and inexperienced, sometimes you forget at this level, 40 minutes is a long time. You can play your way back into a game if you are willing to do enough things right.
At this point, this UNLV team isn’t there yet.
“We’ve got to get better,” Pastner. “We will continue to improve and by the time we get to Mountain West play we’re playing our best basketball.”