Chris Beard’s head coaching stops include time at community colleges in Seminole State and Fort Scott, a level that demands coaches travel to places far and wide and often unknown to discover players.
Ed Graney
Ed Graney is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
egraney@reviewjournal.com … @edgraney on Twitter. 702-383-4618
Cincinnati basketball coach Mick Cronin wasn’t the best fit for UNLV, certainly not in terms of personality and style of play for the money being offered. But that doesn’t mean the best fit isn’t still out there.
The Pac-12 might have stunk up the bracket during this NCAA Tournament, but the one remaining representative appears more than capable of atoning for the sins of its brethren. It appears capable of winning the whole darn thing.
It appears UNLV is in the process of offering Lon Kruger-type money to its leading candidate, Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin. Problem: It’s not Lon Kruger.
The Mountain West should play a 16-game conference schedule instead of 18 so as to allow for more nonleague opportunities against top 50 and top 100 teams. Teams need more chances to schedule the sort of meaningful games league play doesn’t allow.
When the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced today, the Oregon side that on Saturday evening pummeled Utah 88-57 in the Pac-12 tournament final at the MGM Grand Garden should be placed among the No. 1 seeds.
UNLV needs to stop worrying about winning the news conference and hire someone who can win the conference.
The season whose highlight came in the paradise that is Maui in November and yet eventually endured as many emotional bumps and bruises as physical ones ended with a 95-82 loss to Fresno State in a Mountain West Tournament quarterfinal at the Thomas & Mack Center.
UNLV’s basketball program is in for some major changes when the season ends, and it is highly likely the faces of those coaching and several of those playing won’t return next year. But credit the Rebels for this: No one has picked up a white flag.
I had Lasik surgery several years ago and still see at a pretty sharp clip, but the whole eye test theory when it comes to which college basketball teams are most deserving of an NCAA Tournament berth isn’t always the most reliable.
Mountain West presidents switched from an 11 to an eight-team league tournament next year and they failed to inform their head coaches of the move after the coaches voted 11-0 against it.
The Rebels need someone to perform selective memory erasure on them — just delete everything from the moment a ball was dribbled at this season’s first practice.