Kevin Kruger grew tremendously as a head basketball coach off the court as his players did on it during the 2021-22 season.
UNLV
The Thomas Mack Center felt just like Laramie, minus about 5,000 feet of elevation. Hosting the MW Tournament isn’t any sort of home-court advantage for UNLV. Hasn’t been for some time.
UNLV showed its superior balance, depth and coaching in a victory over Utah State, but the Lady Rebels’ resume isn’t good enough to get an at-large NCAA Tournament bid.
It was Senior Night for UNLV on Wednesday, and Bryce Hamilton was the final player to walk onto the Thomas & Mack Center court. How fitting. Saved the best for last.
Many believe UNLV is capable of winning the Mountain West basketball tournament in March and securing the conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament berth.
On a day in which UNLV honored the great Robert Smith, its basketball team played one of its best games of the season in whipping Colorado State at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Second-year coach Lindy La Rocque has the UNLV women’s basketball team sitting atop the Mountain West with a 9-1 record, and the Lady Rebels are 17-4 overall.
UCLA — ranked second nationally but not the country’s second-best team right now — had no problem whipping the Rebels 73-51.
UNLV, under first-year coach Kevin Kruger, lost to No. 4 Michigan on Friday night, but the Rebels stayed with the Wolverines for most of 40 minutes.
Rare was the familiar face running up and down the Mendenhall Center courts for a UNLV team featuring nine transfers. But the effort and intensity were there.
Coaches have been free to leave for another job without penalty forever. Now players have the same right. So coaches need to quit complaining and embrace the new reality.
That UNLV team was ranked No. 1 all season and had just one game decided by fewer than 10 points. Three of the NBA’s top 12 draft picks that year played for Jerry Tarkanian.
The former UNLV basketball coach is retiring to Las Vegas, where he will watch son Kevin take over the Rebels program while trying to inspire a fan base.
Kevin Kruger was among the first to enter the transfer portal when he transferred from Arizona State to UNLV in 2006, so he’s familiar with what has become a major pipeline for talent.
The hire by UNLV’s Desiree Reed-Francois is a gamble. When you hand the keys of a program to a coach who has never sat in the lead chair, unknowns outweigh certainties.