New-look Rebels battle key injuries before Josh Pastner’s 1st season

As Josh Pastner prepares for his first season as head coach of the UNLV men’s basketball team, he’s hoping some key players on his new-look roster can recover from various injuries.

Potentially the most impactful of those returns could be guard Myles Che, who shared a photo on Instagram on Friday of his lower right leg in a soft cast with the caption “back soon.”

Che, a junior transfer guard from UC Irvine, seemed poised to lead the Rebels offense after completing summer workouts with the team.

He sustained a foot injury that required surgery while training at home, Pastner told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Saturday.

Junior forward Ladji Dembele, who transferred from Iowa, injured his foot and had to get surgery as well. Dembele went down in practice, Pastner said.

Freshman forward Tyrin Jones is also out indefinitely, as he suffered a shoulder separation in practice.

“We’ve had a couple just bumps and bruises as well,” Pastner said. “But the three main things have been the two surgeries and separated shoulder.”

In one issue these injuries have presented, Pastner and his staff are working to navigate a balancing act between competitive and careful practices in hopes to avoid anyone else getting hurt.

“I believe that you’ve got to have contact and play five-on-five. And obviously you can’t do the next two months where you’re just doing no contact,” Pastner said. “But you know, we’ve also got to be smart about it.”

Although the Rebels’ schedule has yet to be released for the upcoming season, Pastner is already doing some math to estimate how much time each player will have until games and absences start counting.

The likely date to watch is Nov. 4, but Pastner is hoping players will come back well before then. He estimates it will take at least two weeks for them to ramp back up their conditioning.

“I’m expecting all our guys to be back for the start of the season,” Pastner said. “But a lot of that will be determined based on healing, how aggressively they pursue the rehab, and then how quickly they get back into great cardiovascular shape.”

Ultimately, the health of Pastner’s roster will impact the aggressive and exciting brand of basketball he has consistently advertised.

“I understand strategically and how the crowd wants us to play, how this town and city wants to play. We’ve got to be blue collar, put our working boots on. We’ve got to be relentless. We’ve got to mirror this community,” Pastner said. “To me, that’s point B.

“Point A is that we’ve got to be healthy. It’s a contact sport and things happen, and unfortunately this is part of the deal. But you need to get everyone as healthy as you can, for as long as you can.”

Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.