Whenever fear or doubt crept into Alana Cesarz’s psyche as she rehabilitated her left knee this summer following surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament, she was reassured by Mia Bell, her UNLV basketball teammate who was recovering from microfracture knee surgery.
In his third season as coach, Dave Rice has a unique UNLV basketball team. There is not another one in the nation like it, and that alone sets the scene for intrigue.
I was looking for Lewis Skolnick at one guard spot and Dudley “Booger” Dawson at small forward. But it wasn’t Adams College that UNLV’s basketball team welcomed Tuesday night. It was Adams State. The Rebels might have preferred a group of nerdy Tri-Lambs.
It took longer than Kevin Olekaibe had hoped for the NCAA to approve him to play this season. But the senior guard’s arrival came just in time to help UNLV escape another exhibition embarrassment.
It was a mystery to Dantley Walker where he was headed next. Two years ago, he waited for a mission assignment for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As soon as basketball practice ended Monday, UNLV senior Kevin Olekaibe went looking for his phone.
Midway through the first half, UNLV junior guard Bryce Dejean-Jones limped off the floor while clutching his right hamstring. That was the injury, and then came the insult.
Play hard. Play together. The request might seem overly simplistic for college basketball players owning a wealth of ability, but Dave Rice knows that continuity most often comes before prosperity.
It was not a wonderful life he was leaving behind, so Deville Smith listened when family members pleaded for him to get out of Mississippi and take a higher-percentage shot at success.
There was a Shark sighting on the UNLV campus Wednesday. But this Shark was bronze. And it sure looked like Jerry Tarkanian. The school officially dedicated a statue to the 83-year-old Hall of Fame basketball coach.
