Marvin Menzies faces his toughest test as a coach at UNLV

Marvin Menzies always has struck others as a silver lining guy. He works a room with a sense of positive energy defined by a wide grin. If coffee really is for closers, Menzies the recruiter exists within a constant caffeine rush.

He can find a bright spot in most situations, a trait about to be tested at a level more than Menzies has faced as a coach.

The good news for UNLV’s basketball team is that a forgettable trend of finishing lower in the Mountain West than predicted by various preseason polls might be difficult to manage this season, mostly because of the bad news.

Which is where the Rebels are likely to be picked.

Practice has begun for Menzies and his first Rebels team, almost six months after UNLV hired the former New Mexico State coach to rebuild a roster on which just three scholarship players remained.

Nick Saban — um, Menzies — has limited how much media can observe of practice, first while preparing for a summer journey to the Bahamas and apparently now as things begin for eventually facing the likes of Duke and Oregon and Kansas.

Eventually, games will begin and everyone will see everything, be it the flaws that exist within the Rebels or the promise some of the new faces might deliver.

Stop overthinking the room. It’s basketball. Nobody is splitting the atom inside the Mendenhall Center.

The Rebels over the past five years were picked from second to fourth in the Mountain West, never finishing at or better than such a forecast. They were sixth last season and seventh the previous year, falling far short of where most believed their talent should have placed them. Some also believed there wasn’t that much talent.

This current group probably will be picked from seventh to ninth when the league’s preseason poll is announced in a few weeks, not surprising given the instability of things defined by a clumsy coaching search and the gigantic challenge Menzies and his staff then faced in landing numerous players so late in the recruiting process.

“Our message is the same every year — make our stand early by doing things the right way and outworking people and embracing the fact we’re going to have to play with a little bit of a chip on our shoulders,” Menzies said. “Things like where we are picked can definitely be used as motivation and bulletin board material, but our guys need to be self-motivated and to play with an edge from the very first day. They need to be ready to compete right now.

“Be a self-starter and have accountability, and we will have a chance to shock some people.”

The worst Menzies finished in the Western Athletic Conference in nine seasons at New Mexico State was third. His teams won titles in his first season and the last two, when the Aggies were a combined 26-2 in conference. They were annually expected to win and make the NCAA Tournament, the latter of which they did five of the nine years.

But he is now coaching a program with a far more profound sense of history in a town whose annual expectations for UNLV basketball exist somewhere between unrealistic and foolish.

Put it this way: If the bizarre surroundings that led to his hiring at UNLV, which included so many players bolting before he even got the job, has earned him somewhat of a pass for a season or two for things such as records and challenging for postseason berths, don’t tell those locally still living in 1990.

You have to believe those 10 days of practice before the Bahamas were far more beneficial than a few of the games, which, by the looks of things across a grainy internet feed, might have been against some of the best YMCA players in the capital city of Nassau.

The Bahamas knows tourism and fishing, but not a lick about defense.

Still, it allowed Menzies to introduce concepts at both ends, to identify early strengths and weaknesses of a team that will be as unfamiliar with those fans paying to watch as it still might be to players on the floor.

It allowed the staff a head start on a season expected to be difficult more nights than not.

“Any time you build a program and add a new system, you still create it around fundamentals,” Menzies said. “We were able to show them our base stuff before the trip to the Bahamas, and will now build off that and tweak things in drills and smaller groups.

“I’m excited, but I’m always excited. I don’t know yet how good we can be, but I’m excited for us to get to the point where we are competing against other people. That’s why we do what we do. That’s the joy of coaching, the process of seeing guys move forward and to help develop them.

“I don’t pay too much attention to (preseason polls).”

This year, perhaps more than ever at UNLV, that might be a good thing.

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. On Twitter: @edgraney.