UNLV basketball faces daunting task, but current roster has faith

Kris Clyburn has a story for his UNLV basketball teammates. It’s about a community college program in Ranger, Texas, a speck-of-dust town between Abilene and Fort Worth, where nearly 19 percent of its population lives below the poverty line.

Last year, not much was thought of the Rangers, who were coming off a 2-23 season. They certainly weren’t expected to contend for a championship of the North Texas Junior College Athletic Conference or make any sort of noise in the postseason.

The speck of dust wasn’t expected to create a haboob of wins.

“We won the league and advanced to the semifinals of the national tournament,” said the sophomore Clyburn. “Rankings or where you are picked don’t mean a thing. Work hard every day. You see a lot of players here (at UNLV) and might not know their names yet, but we’re working hard just like that (Ranger) team did last year.”

The team Clyburn speaks of was ultimately found to have used an ineligible player and forced to forfeit 31 wins and that national semifinal appearance, but his message remains clear: Results aren’t always founded on expectations.

How much — and early — a UNLV fan base that can be as unrealistic as it is passionate buys into the newest version of the Rebels is anyone’s guess, but never underestimate how a team might respond to the perception of those who watch it.

To the presence of support or apathy.

The latter is worse than anger and bitterness.

It’s worse than anything.

The last thing any college program wants is to be defined by an indifferent fan base. When people don’t care, creating success becomes that much tougher.

Because of this, Marvin Menzies has more than games to try and win as the first-year UNLV head coach, but also fans who have become overly disenchanted in recent seasons with the program’s inability to contend for a Mountain West title and make the NCAA Tournament.

Menzies inherited just three scholarship players upon being hired in April, and spent the next several months patchworking together a roster that will open its season against South Alabama on Friday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.

You probably have to go back to 1993-94 to discover a UNLV team that had this little buzz locally entering a season.

Rollie Massimino was in his second year as coach after replacing Jerry Tarkanian, and the Rebels had fallen apart down the stretch the previous season, losing to Southern California in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. Also, there remained a strong negative reaction from fans toward university president Robert Maxson for running Tarkanian out of UNLV.

There was also little fire within the community about the Rebels in 1995-96, when Bill Bayno was hired as coach and UNLV went 10-16 overall and finished ninth in the Big West Conference.

The current state is more like the latter than the Massimino Mess, and yet both defined the perceived current lack of interest in the Rebels across town.

It’s real, and could prove quite palpable should as many seats remain empty as some believe will for several games this season. I can only imagine some of the announced attendance numbers.

“The die-hards will come,” Menzies said. “The real fans. I think they will come to see what we have been selling. We want their support early. Fans can play a big role in our success. Let’s face it — if we have a loaded arena, it will be important for us winning home games.”

The Rebels are picked eighth in an 11-team Mountain West whose overall strength is seriously in question after the top three or so programs. There are winnable games for UNLV in November, not many at all in December, and then comes conference play.

When he was a first-year assistant at San Diego State in 1999, Menzies spent most of that season recruiting for head coach Steve Fisher, traveling anywhere and everywhere to discover talent.

The team Menzies will coach this season is far better than what the Aztecs were then, but that doesn’t mean he and his staff won’t spend a large chunk of time devoted to recruiting over some (several?) of those who will play quality minutes the next five months.

That’s a harsh reality of the business.

That’s how you get better.

“Our goal is always to win as many games as we can and compete for a regular-season conference title and then go to the conference tournament and so forth,” Menzies said. “But you have to be realistic. I do think our future is going to be bright, but we’re going to have to bring in more talent than we have now.”

That’s about the future. When it comes to the present, UNLV needs to hope apathy doesn’t define its fan base, because that’s worse than anger and bitterness.

It’s worse than anything.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.