UNLV’s Staff of All-Stars
New UNLV head coach Dave Rice has the reputation of being one of the best offensive minds in the game. He will speed up UNLV’s offense and keep the defensive mindset that Coach Lon Kruger instilled. The result will be a fun team to watch and an interesting sideline to keep an eye on too. Coach Rice played at UNLV and was part of the NCAA Tournament champion squad in 1990 under the legendary Jerry Tarkanian. Since then, Rice has spent time on the sidelines at UNLV, Utah State and, most recently, BYU. He was part of Jimmer mania and helped design the offense that paved the way for Fredette to earn national player of the year accolades from just about everybody.
The first thing Coach Rice had to do after he took the UNLV job was find a staff. He nabbed former Rebel teammate Stacey Augmon away from his gig with the Denver Nuggets. Augmon will certainly help out with the defensive end of things as the “Plastic Man” spent a couple decades shutting down some of the best collegiate and NBA players.
Augmon will fill an important role on the bench, but Rice needed to seize a more experienced coach who can do some more X’s and O’s. That turned out to be former Wyoming head man Heath Schroyer. If you wanted somebody to scout out teams in the Mountain West, what better way to go than with a former head coach in the conference? And it’s not like Schroyer has been away from the conference for a long time…he was the Cowboys coach last season.
And then there is that need for a super recruiter, preferably with ties to the fertile recruiting grounds of Southern California. Once again Rice did not need to leave the conference to find his man. Justin Hutson spent the last five years at San Diego State, helping Steve Fisher build a very successful program. There is less building to be done at UNLV, but getting Hutson to leave San Diego was a great get and with this group, the Runnin’ Rebels will not fall from the top of the conference. Even a little of that old 1990 magic is in the air.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview for this team
