DePaul, UNLV share past greatness, recent futility

Three sports writers walk not into a bar (surprise) but into South Point Arena, where UNR was playing Towson in basketball. This was a couple of days before Christmas.

One said UNR appeared much better than UNLV.

The second said it could be worse. It could be DePaul, which was playing in one of the myriad tournaments around town that seem to start up around Halloween.

The third sports writer, having grown up in the shadow of Chicago’s elevated train tracks, said he was old enough to remember when UNLV and DePaul were concurrent basketball powerhouses.

The next night, DePaul played Wyoming at Orleans Arena. It was not a battle of concurrent basketball powerhouses.

The uniforms DePaul wore were white with red and blue accents. They looked much like the ones Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings and Tyrone Corbin and Dave Corzine and Rod Strickland, et al., wore. Except you had to tuck in the shirttails.

They looked nothing like the uniform Big George Mikan, No. 99, wore at DePaul during the 1940s when he revolutionized the game. The Blue Demons were coached by young Ray Meyer then. Meyer would be DePaul’s coach for 42 seasons, and when he stepped down in 1984, he was not so young anymore.

Jerry Tarkanian would have been impressed by Ray Meyer’s longevity, and by his success.

But DePaul was not successful against Wyoming, which won 72-58. The next night, DePaul lost again, 69-58 to Missouri State.

In a few days, it will be 10 years since DePaul last enjoyed a winning season. From 2008 through 2011, the Blue Demons were 0-18, 1-17 and 1-17 in the Big East.

So what happened?

The third sports writer was sitting alongside Mark Warkentien, the director of player personnel for the New York Knicks (who also had sat on Tark’s bench at UNLV), when the question was posed.

Warkentien said ESPN happened.

Before ESPN, DePaul games were shown on WGN in Chicago, one of the first TV superstations. Almost everybody could watch Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings hoop it up from the comfort of his living room sofa. UNLV had a similar deal with Los Angeles cable stations, when broadcast legend Chick Hearn would travel to call Rebels games.

“It was the social media of the time,” Warkentien said.

Then, he said, ESPN came along, and it needed programming, because there were only so many times you could show pro rodeo from Mesquite, Texas. College basketball provided programming. Suddenly, everybody was on TV — not just DePaul and UNLV. Even the basketball teams from the football schools were shown on ESPN.

Over time, many improved in basketball.

Over time, the exposure advantage DePaul and, to a lesser extent, UNLV enjoyed evaporated in the manner of DePaul’s early lead against the Cowpokes.

Warkentien told a story about a San Diego kid named Lawrence West, whom the Rebels had tried to recruit. West signed with DePaul, despite the fact it snows in the shadow of the elevated train tracks, because he wanted to play on national TV. When the winters got too frosty (or his grades slipped), West transferred to UNLV and played on the Rebels’ second Final Four team.

Steve Lavin, the former UCLA coach who was calling the DePaul-Wyoming game for cable TV, said that was interesting but only one theory why DePaul and UNLV have fallen from grace with a resounding thud.

“If a once successful basketball program slips and falls on hard times, it’s frequently a combination of elements that factor into the losing equation,” Lavin said. “Most struggling programs are not funded in a manner to compete against the other programs in their respective conferences.”

These programs cannot compete for top-flight coaches, Lavin said, or keep one who has achieved success from moving on.

“Next in order of importance is recruiting budget and upgrades in facilities,” Lavin said. “Think Butler, Gonzaga, VCU, Saint Mary’s, Xavier, Villanova, Wichita State and Valparaiso …”

Yes, those are nonfootball schools that are successful, and most have new or upgraded arenas, but Butler plays in one so ancient that it still is called a field house and served as sound stage for the period movie “Hoosiers.”

So as UNLV prepares to open conference play at Colorado State, Rebels fans should remember that as bad as it now seems, it could be worse.

It could be someplace where they still pull the bleachers out of the wall.

It could be DePaul, where the basketball team seems destined for another losing season, and where the forecast Tuesday was for a high of 33 degrees with a chance of snow.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.