UNLV’s basketball team will awake Wednesday, head to the airport and board a flight for New York, where the Rebels will meet Stanford in a Coaches vs. Cancer Classic game Friday night at Barclays Center.
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It wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But for a team that suited up six players on Friday who hadn’t competed in a regular-season Division I game, UNLV did more good than bad.
There is another slogan. It’s not about running this time.
What the Rebels encountered Wednesday — a 100-65 victory against an outfit named Florida National before a heavily inflated announced gathering of 10,253 at the Thomas & Mack Center — was an exhibition is every sense of the word.
Chris Wood attempted 43 percent of his shots from beyond the 3-point arc in his freshman year and made just 22 percent. He’s bulked up and worked on his low-post game to take advantage of his 6-foot-11 frame inside.
Former Long Beach State head coach Max Good was hired this week as a special assistant to UNLV head coach Dave Rice, bringing to the Rebels a veteran presence the team has desperately needed since Rice assumed control of the program in 2011.
It requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking pieces. When the puzzle that is the Rebels of next season is finished, it’s a good bet Cody Doolin will have defined a fairly significant piece.
Bismack Biyombo went ahead of him. So did Jimmer Fredette and Markieff Morris and Alec Burks. Fourteen names were called during the 2011 NBA Draft before Kawhi Leonard made his way to the stage for a congratulatory handshake from then-commissioner David Stern.
Khem Birch decided to leave UNLV and declare for the NBA Draft. There’s a question if he’ll get drafted, but no question it’s a big loss for the Rebels.
Three years ago, Connecticut won the national championship. Shabazz Napier was a freshman on that team. So too was Roscoe Smith.