There isn’t a better teammate on UNLV than Khem Birch. He is as thoughtful and sincere a kid as the Rebels have had in years. His heart is as big as his wingspan, a young man who at times can be as naive as he is compassionate. There is no phony to him.
Sports Columns
For some reason, the first thing that popped into mind upon reading former Brigham Young gunner Jimmer Fredette was on his way out with the NBA’s Kings was a “Seinfeld” episode called “The Jimmy.”
A magician works with smoke and mirrors and a sexy assistant. Sometimes, a hat and a rabbit are involved. But when you see Gregg Marshall coaching Wichita State in a basketball game, he’s never using props and doing eye-opening tricks.
The Rebels were good enough on Wednesday night, beating a Colorado State team that couldn’t match up in talent but was again coached well enough to make things interesting.
Instant replay gets it right, but wrecks spontaneous thrill of sinking a buzzer-beating basket.
It’s not a conspiracy that Oliver Stone would be inclined to turn into a documentary. It was two days too late, but some evidence surfaced to suggest that Deville Smith’s last shot against Boise State should have beat the clock.
It was as difficult and emotional a loss as you can imagine for UNLV’s basketball team. The Rebels played their hearts out for 45 minutes Saturday night and deserved a better fate.
When it comes to the NCAA Tournament this college basketball season, most everyone views the Mountain West in a similar manner: a conference worthy of two berths. Maybe.
It was December when Kobe Bryant last made a cameo appearance, and when Pau Gasol has suited up lately, he actually wore a suit. The Los Angeles Lakers are rebuilding with replacement players, and the timing is perfect.
Up. Down. Right. Left. Fast. Slow. Twist. Turn. So goes the roller-coaster of a basketball team UNLV has proven itself to be time and again this season.
Even before he shoved a loud-mouthed, obnoxious fan, Marcus Smart made a bigger mistake. He returned to Oklahoma State when he would have been a top-five pick, and possibly the No. 1 pick, in last summer’s NBA Draft.
The talent keeps coming for UNLV basketball, keeps believing in the vision Dave Rice has created, keeps talking about a style of play that if the Rebels ever get around to implementing, just might produce the sort of success a third-year coaching staff insists is attainable.
Because I am of the opinion that most people take sports way too seriously, I am happy there are the Washington Generals, and that on their official website there is a photo of a chalkboard depicting the times they have lost to the Harlem Globetrotters.
If you snapped a picture outside, it would have been one of ice. Of snow. Of slush. Of the sort of air that burns your lungs with each inhale. Of the biting cold Robert Frost wrote about so brilliantly.
It has been a good week, sort of, for Anthony Bennett, the former UNLV basketball whiz and much-maligned top overall pick in the most recent NBA draft. For starters, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey called Royce White the worst NBA first-round draft pick ever. Not Bennett.