ESPN Men's Basketball

Mike Moser. Khem Birch. Anthony Bennett.

In last week's SportsNation chat, a UNLV fan asked me if that was the best frontcourt in the country. It didn't technically exist yet -- Bennett had yet to announce his intentions to attend UNLV, a move he announced Saturday -- but that didn't stop the Rebels fan from projecting his hopes on the team. And really, can you blame him?

Moser is a future NBA small forward whose length and versatility make him an intuitive defender and rebounder, one whose offensive game is only going to be more polished in his junior season. Birch was ranked No. 1 by ESPNU recruiting at the center position in the class of 2011, before he enrolled and later transferred away from a struggling Pittsburgh team. Bennett, meanwhile, was the top remaining unsigned player in the class of 2012 before Saturday, the No. 7-ranked player overall, whom scouts love for his combination of size (he's 6-foot-8, 230 pounds), athleticism and ability to step away from the rim and score on the perimeter. Bennett still needs to improve his low-post game, but by all accounts he's the kind of talent that can step into the college game and flourish immediately.

UNLV coach Dave Rice's system should make that transition even easier. Last season, his first in charge of the program, Rice sought to put to "Runnin'" back in "Runnin' Rebels," and by and large he succeeded. UNLV averaged 70.0 possessions per game (adjusted, via Ken Pomeroy), making them the 29th-fastest team in the country in 2011-12. Last season, Rice's uptempo style was complemented by a flurry of capable guards and outside shooters -- Anthony Marshall, Oscar Bellfield, Chace Stanback, Justin Hawkins. Bellfield and Stanback are gone, but Marshall and Hawkins return, and the idea of both players leading fast breaks with Moser, Bennett and Birch filling the wings and the paint -- well, yeah, the term "scary good" feels entirely appropriate.

There are some reservations to be had. Among them is Birch. The highly touted center spent exactly one preseason and 10 games at Pitt before deciding he wasn't the right fit. That would be all well and good -- bad fits happen all the time -- had Birch stuck it out longer or, say, not ripped his teammates on the radio after his departure for being selfish and "threatened" by him. Will Birch fit with Moser and Bennett, two other top talents sure to demand their fair share of offensive touches? This is where Rice's system helps again: Birch wants to play uptempo, too.

Either way, when that -- will our super-talented center get along with our super-talented forwards? -- is the biggest question concerning your upcoming season, you're in awfully good shape. Arizona and UCLA have their sights set on the always-nebulous "best team in the West" title. There may be better frontcourts in the country. (Kentucky's immediately comes to mind.) But UNLV is right there in both cases, stocked with pro-level talent at the three, four and five positions. Are there five teams in the country who can say as much?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The NCAA tournament had its epic near-miss earlier Thursday when 16-seed UNC Asheville couldn’t close out Syracuse.

The controversy about the officiating contributed to it being the most discussed game of the day.

VCU became a storyline yet again with a final-possessions win over Wichita State, remaining relevant for a second year in a row.

There were plenty of impressive performances, notably Gonzaga’s pummeling of West Virginia in Pittsburgh. But for the most part the chalk held.

Except at the end of the night.

The Pac-12 has been rightfully beaten down throughout the season. Washington, the regular-season champ, didn’t even get a bid. Cal didn’t put up much of a fight against a middling South Florida in a First Four game in Dayton, Ohio, adding even more insult to the league’s off-year.

But if an underdog or Cinderella can still come from a BCS league (in football terminology), then Colorado fits the description.

This simply shouldn’t be happening. But it is.

The Buffs, picked to finish 11th in the league to start the season, won the Pac-12 tournament with four wins in four days and have moved into the third round of the NCAAs after holding on to beat No. 6 seed UNLV 68-60 Thursday night at the Pit.

Maybe even more surprising than the score and the Buffs moving on is how much they have become a hoops haven.

The Colorado crowd was by far the most boisterous of any of the eight teams in attendance. The raw euphoria from fans young and old had the security at the Pit sprinting out in anticipation that Buffs backers might actually storm the court. A number of fans, who were a part of an impressive CU contingent of about 2,500, had started to move down to the lower level, gathering right above the band in what looked like a precursor to a storm.

But this is the NCAA tournament, where storming is as forbidden as taking a Coke can onto the floor without an approved plastic cup cover.

“I feel like our guys are playing well, playing with a lot of confidence and we’re just going to try to keep it rolling,’’ said Colorado’s Andre Roberson. “I just feel like we can take down Baylor coming up.’’

Umm, what?

Baylor is by far the most athletic, longest, deepest and talented team Colorado will have faced all season. No one in the Pac-12 would have come close.

But why would Colorado feel like anything is impossible? The Buffs actually used Connecticut’s five-games-in-five-days Big East tournament title run of a year ago as motivation prior to the Pac-12 tournament.

Victories over Utah, Oregon, Cal and Arizona just continued the improbable roll.

UNLV was next, and while the Runnin’ Rebels had moments of confusion at times in the final month of the season, they surely would outrebound and run past CU, right?

Not quite. CU outrebounded the Rebels by 13.

“I did think that they played with a greater sense of urgency than we did,’’ said UNLV coach Dave Rice.

The rarity of Colorado in this position was quickly pointed out by the CU administration on a postgame release. The Buffs had never won five games in a row March. That’s never — as in has never happened. The last time the Buffs won a game in the NCAA tournament, Chauncey Billups was the point guard and it was 1997.

“I don’t think I was born yet,’’ said Roberson. “No, I know I was. I don’t know.’’

“I was 3,’’ CU’s Askia Booker said. “I was 3.’’

The Buffs have a collection of gritty guys who would pale in comparison to Baylor’s length — and yet to dismiss them would be a major error in judgment. Roberson and Spencer Dinwiddie can block shots with the Baylor bigs Quincy Acy and Perry Jones III. Shooters like Austin Dufault, Carlon Brown and Booker can all match Brady Heslip on 3s. And the Buffs can actually win despite making turnovers (23 Thursday).

“We believe in ourselves,’’ Roberson said. “We believe in everything coach [Tad] Boyle tells us. We execute our game plan. We try to do our best. Defense and rebounding, that’s our motto. Every time we do that, we win games.’’

Boyle had the Buffs on the doorstep of the NCAA tournament last year in the final year of the Big 12. It was Boyle’s first season with Colorado. And then the team lost its two best players in Alec Burks and Cory Higgins.

Now, five games into this postseason, Boyle’s record is a combined 10-2 in playoff basketball at CU after a 3-1 NIT record a year ago.

“I don’t see why it can’t continue,’’ Boyle said. “It’s going to get harder as we go, we know that. But I believe in this team. They believe in themselves, and as long as you do that this time of year, you’ve got a shot.’’

As good as the afternoon was, with exciting upsets and huge road wins over top-five teams, the evening may have matched it in the vital FOPM statistical category. (FOPM stands for freak outs per minute. It's a tempo-adjusted metric, naturally.) Let's lead with what may be the result of the day -- Syracuse's very first loss of the season, at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame 67, No. 1 Syracuse 58

What we learned: Nobody's perfect. OK, yeah, Murray State is still perfect, but you get the drift: Everyone loses eventually. Sooner or later, the Orange were going to have a particularly bad shooting night. Sooner or later, they were going to struggle on the road. Sooner or later, they were going to do these things against a coach and a team that had designed the perfect gameplan to take advantage of this opportunity. As it happens, that coach was Mike Brey. That team was Notre Dame.

Of course, the Fighting Irish don't have a tenth of the talent available to Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. What do the Irish have? The Burn. That's what Brey calls his team's intentionally slow, clock-killing offense, and while it isn't always the preferred strategy in South Bend, it is something the Irish keep in their back pocket when they find themselves facing a bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled, pretty-much-all-around-better opponent.

Indeed, as ESPN's Doris Burke noted late in the game, the Irish played a sort of semi-burn Saturday night. They lulled the Cuse into seven fewer possessions (61) than its average adjusted tempo (68) on the season (including a handful of late heaves when the game was out of reach), but ND was also opportunistic: When it broke SU's press, it didn't always pull out and set up the halfcourt offense. It was a clinic in opportunistic decision-making. (At one point, it ended in a contested fast-break dunk by Jack Cooley. Jack Cooley? Jack Cooley!)

Syracuse, being Syracuse, still managed to force a mess of turnovers. At several points in the second half, as Notre Dame forward Scott Martin struggled time after time to inbound the ball on his own baseline, it appeared the Irish were just a few possessions away from a late collapse. But the Orange's poor shooting (they posted a 40.0 effective field goal percentage) and ND's solid free throw shooting sealed this game in the closing moments.

Burke called it a "masterful" gameplan from Brey and, as usual, she was dead on: Notre Dame knew exactly what it needed to do to take a walk through any door Syracuse left ajar. When the time came, it executed.

Going forward, this loss may knock Syracuse out of the top spot in the rankings, but it shouldn't change the perception of this team much. First of all, the absence of leading rebounder and shot-blocker Fab Melo (due to an unresolved academic issue from the fall semester) was a blow to this team's inherent interior advantage. Second, Syracuse didn't shoot the ball well. Frankly, it didn't play well. Overreact if you like, but it's the opinion of this writer that, well, hey, these games happen.

For Syracuse, it was bound to go this way eventually. When it did, the Irish were ready.

No. 15 Mississippi State 78, Vanderbilt 77 (OT)

What we learned: The Commodores will struggle with capable frontcourts. They struggle late in close games. They struggle on the defensive end. They are, in other words, the same Vanderbilt Commodores we've come to know and love in each of the past three seasons. Their recent improvements created the notion that this team had turned some vague corner, that it was finally ready to assume the top-10, Final Four-worthy preseason expectations foisted upon them.

Instead, on Saturday, we saw the team that led us to doubt that status in the first place. Vandy yielded a 12-point second-half lead, allowed Mississippi State to score 1.14 points per possession and got vastly outrebounded on both ends of the floor. In the end, even with very good chances to win the game -- particularly the final shot in regulation, which ended up being an uncontested four-foot shot for Festus Ezeli (which he missed) -- Vanderbilt just couldn't make the key defensive plays.

In the meantime, Mississippi State deserves credit for a major road win. Forward Arnett Moultrie was brilliant (21 points, 14 rebounds, three steals, one block) and guard Dee Bost was just as good (24 points, five rebounds, four assists and a handful of key second-half shots). Even Renardo Sidney, who struggled for much of the game and suffered an injury in overtime, got in on the act, hitting a monster 3 with 1:22 remaining in the second half.

Three days ago, the Bulldogs went to rival Ole Miss and lost and looked vulnerable -- even downright overrated -- throughout. Their ability to rebound from that loss with a win on the road against a streaking Vanderbilt team, one that had won its past eight games -- including on the road at Alabama -- is to be commended. Surprising stuff, to say the least.

No. 12 UNLV 80, New Mexico 63

What we learned: UNLV is still the Mountain West favorite. Yes, yes, San Diego State certainly has a claim to that distinction, too, especially since its first two conference results -- a two-point home win over the Rebels and an incredibly impressive road win at New Mexico -- were among the most impressive back-to-back performances we've seen from any team in any league this season. New Mexico is no slouch, either. Before Wednesday's loss to SDSU, the Lobos had won 13 in a row. There are three very good teams in the MWC, folks. That much we know.

Then again, I'd say we knew that already. The main takeaway from Saturday night's best late-night matchup -- and this is a good old-fashioned eye-test thing to say, but I'm doing it anyway -- is that UNLV just looks like the best team in this league. The Rebels have few, if any, holes in their attack. They have talented players at every position. Their guards push the pace; their forwards run to the rim; their wings hit 3s with ease. Anthony Marshall, Chace Stanback, Mike Moser, Oscar Bellfield and even reserves like Carlos Lopez and Justin Hawkins -- these players are perfectly suited to Dave Rice's new emphasis on uptempo basketball, and when you watch them play, it shows.

The Mountain West race is going to be fascinating, and we'll hear more from the Lobos -- and, of course, the league-leading Aztecs -- before the season is out. Sure, I'd take UNLV as the favorite. But whatever happens, if two of these three teams are playing, it promises to be very entertaining.

A few more observations from the Saturday evening that was:

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AP Photo/Keith SrakocicPitt lost its ninth game Saturday, matching the highest season loss total of Jamie Dixon's tenure.
• Bad times got worse for Pittsburgh on Saturday night, as the Panthers fell to No. 21 Louisville at home, 73-62. In case you're counting, that's Pitt's eighth straight loss and seventh in a row in Big East play ... for the first time in Pitt hoops history. Ouch. Even worse? According to ESPN Stats and Information, this is the first time Pitt has lost four straight home games since 1999-2000. The loss is also Pitt's ninth this season. Jamie Dixon-coached Pittsburgh teams have never recorded more than nine losses in a regular season. There are myriad issues afflicting the Panthers right now, chief among them defense, but it's hard to see any major improvements coming any time soon. If this wasn't a lost season already, it is now.
• Neither VCU nor Old Dominion are likely to end up with a chance at an at-large bid come March, but their meeting tonight was still full of implications for the CAA title race. Before Saturday, ODU was 6-1 in conference and VCU 5-2, both right there hanging around with George Mason and Drexel in the Colonial standings. In other words, Virginia Commonwealth got a rather massive 61-48 win, handling the lackluster Monarchs rather easily at home. Shaka Smart's team is still rebuilding after last year's miracle NCAA tournament run, but they're not nearly as far down as most would have expected. Keep your eye on the Rams.
• The C-USA race is going to be interesting. Marshall appeared to have the best odds to challenge Memphis' purported superiority, with Southern Miss a notch or two below -- a dark horse at best. After Saturday -- when Southern Miss topped Marshall and tied the Thundering Herd at 4-1 in league play -- it seems clear things aren't quite that simple. There are no remaining unbeaten teams in the league, with UCF at 5-1 and Memphis, Marshall and USM all now residing in second place at 4-1.
• I don't know if we'll call the Pac-12 race "interesting." "Mystifying" feels more appropriate. Either way, consider what went down in the conference Saturday: Cal fell at Washington State (not an unforgiveable loss, given how well Wazzu has played at home, but still) just as the Bears appeared set, thanks to a blowout Stanford loss at Washington, to create some separation between themselves and the rest of the league. Meanwhile UCLA -- which keeps struggling, week after week, to sort things out -- fell on the road at Oregon, which is now 6-2 and tied atop the league standings. Elsewhere, lowly Utah not only didn't lose, but actually blew out Arizona State in Salt Lake City; and Colorado held on for a one-point home win over Arizona. Those Pac-12 power rankings are going to be a bear to write. I can't wait.
• Two results from the West that shouldn't be dismissed. Long Beach State, a team that played perhaps the most grueling nonconference schedule in the country, continues to see the dividends from that gauntlet. On the road Saturday night, LBSU went into the Thunderdome and absolutely obliterated chief rival UC Santa Barbara, 71-48, the talented squad that's beaten the 49ers in the Big West final in each of the past two seasons. And in Laramie, Wyoming beat rival Colorado State -- which had won eight straight -- 70-51 to improve to 16-3. Yes, 16-3. What a job by first-year coach Larry Shyatt. And what a performance by USC transfer Leonard Washington, who set career highs in points (32) and rebounds (14).
• As for the momentum Nebraska created with that dramatic victory over Indiana on Wednesday? Ohio State did not seem to care. Buckeyes 79, Huskers 45. So much for that.

SAN DIEGO — Lying just beyond the baseline, where the court at Viejas Arena turns to concrete, San Diego State’s Jamaal Franklin was reeling. He had suffered a “big tweak” in his ankle following a rough out-of-bounds collision.

There would have been no shame if he had hung it up for the day. There was 1 minute, 1 second left in the game and the No. 22 Aztecs had a 67-66 lead over No. 12 UNLV.

Franklin had already given his team 22 points and 10 rebounds -- more than admirable in a game that at times looked more like an MMA scrap than a college basketball game.

“We’re a family,” Franklin said. “If my ankle is broken, and they want me out there, I’m out there.”

And it’s a good thing he was. Because with less than a second left in the game, Franklin -- limping and all -- hit an awkward, leaning 5-foot jumper that sent the crowd of 12,414 into a frenzy and propelled the Aztecs to a 69-67 victory.

Just a minute earlier, those same fans were willing him back to his feet. They erupted when he checked back into the game with 30 seconds left.

“Oh yeah,” Franklin said. “I heard them.”

Leading up to Franklin’s heroics, it was the knock-down, drag-out game that had become typical over the past few years when UNLV and San Diego State get together.

“This was a wonderful college game,” SDSU head coach Steve Fisher said. “Obviously, we are the team smiling today. We have had so many games just like this with UNLV. We have been on the good side as of late. UNLV is a really exceptional team.”

UNLV, which has now dropped six straight to the Aztecs, did everything a team is supposed to do to win on the road: win the rebounding battle, get more points from your bench, commit fewer turnovers. The only thing the Rebels couldn’t do was shoot the ball. Anthony Marshall kept UNLV in the game with 26 points on 8-of-17 shooting. But no other Rebel managed double-digit scoring.

UNLV came into the game with the best scoring average in the conference at 81.3 points per game on 48 percent shooting from the field. The Aztecs didn’t allow UNLV anywhere near that. The Rebs managed just 35 percent from the field, including a measly 28.6 percent in the first half.

The Aztecs shot 43.6 percent on the day, including a solid 48 in the second half. James Rahon provided a big boost with 22 points on 3-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc. But it was the SDSU defense that made the difference.

“We just focused on our defensive schemes,” said San Diego State’s Chase Tapley, who added 11 points and six rebounds. “They are a good pick-and-roll team ... we had to really trust our defense and follow the schemes. We did that Grade-A today.”

It doesn’t get any easier for the Aztecs, who travel to face preseason favorite New Mexico at “The Pit” on Wednesday.

“It’s one of the top wins of my career,” said Tapley, who came into the game leading the conference in scoring. “Two great teams were going at it. They were competitive … we just got the upper hand today. It felt good, it still feels good. We have to take this win and enjoy today, but we’ll be back in the lab on Monday to get focused on New Mexico.”

UNLV, which has lost nine of 10 to the Aztecs, is moving on and looking forward to the Feb. 11 rematch in Vegas.

“The way we look at it, we’re 0-1 in the league and they’ve beaten us one time,” UNLV first-year coach Dave Rice said. “It’s different players, it’s just a situation where they have a good basketball team and they held serve on their home floor. And that’s to their credit.”

1. Unbeaten Murray State’s third-leading scorer Ivan Aska will go back to a doctor Wednesday to evaluate his broken right hand. Murray State coach Steve Prohm said Monday that Aska, a senior forward, remains doubtful for this week’s games against Jacksonville State (Thursday) and Tennessee Tech (Saturday). Prohm said LaTreze Mushatt, who started the past four games, will remain in that role. Prohm said he also looked to continue to play four guards during this stretch.

2. UNLV coach Dave Rice will have two semesters to ensure that Pitt transfer Khem Birch left any baggage behind. Rice is coaching multiple four-year transfer players at UNLV that he inherited from Lon Kruger. And so far they’ve flourished. Birch’s bailing on Pitt after one semester isn’t a good sign. So the onus is on him to prove that he’s not the problem, but that he didn’t fit the system. If he’s going to flourish in a more wide-open set, then he can’t have any other issues during his transfer year in residence.

3. Virginia coach Tony Bennett said Mike Scott, the new frontrunner for ACC player of the year, is more versatile this season. He can face, post and has improved his outside shot. But for the Cavaliers to beat Duke Thursday in Cameron Indoor Stadium, they’ll have to be at their best defensively and have solid offensive games from Scott and the Cavs’ guards. Bennett said in the one-point win over Miami it was too much Scott, solid defense and not much else.

UNLV coach Dave Rice's debut ended in victory but it also made them realize there is more work to do if the Runnin' Rebels are going to live up to their name.

After one half of an exhibition game against Washburn, the Rebels trailed by a point, shot 17 percent from the field, and missed all eight of their 3-point attempts.

UNLV rallied to win an ugly 58-50 game without suspended star Chace Stanback and took a step toward working out the kinks of their new offense, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

But it was a learning experience, too, as the Rebels realized quickly that many future opponents will also know that with their desire to run, there will be several game plans designed around trying to slow them down to a crawl.

"I think with the athletes we have and the way we're trying to push the tempo and play, I think there are a lot of teams that will try to take the air out of [the ball] a little bit," Rice said. "So that's something we'll have to learn to deal with.

Despite the lackluster stats from the early portion of the game, perhaps UNLV got its biggest compliment before the contest. Former coach Jerry Tarkanian, whose offense Rice played in and is using as inspiration, offered his endorsement of the team in his latest Las Vegas Sun blog entry.

I’m just very impressed with the ball club. I told Dave how surprised I was with how many players he has. His roster is deeper than any of mine were.

There is a lot of excitement right now in the community for what he is doing and that running style of play. I can’t wait to see it on the court, too.

But they can’t live off that excitement. They have to go out and prove themselves -- they have to get out there and run.

While at UCLA during his freshman season, top-100 recruit Mike Moser wore No. 1 but didn't particularly get his number called much. With the Bruins finishing that year 14-18, Moser only contributed 0.6 points and 0.5 rebounds before deciding to transfer.

He's changed his jersey number to 43 now after resurfacing at UNLV to become one of the potential impact transfers in the Mountain West, and according to the Las Vegas Sun, the new number represents the chip on his shoulder from not playing much at UCLA.

Not long after UCLA transfer Mike Moser arrived in Las Vegas last summer, he went to play ball in an open gym session. Over his shoulder, he heard some people talking about him.

"I remember I walked in and some guys were like, 'That's the kid from UCLA, but he only averaged like 4.3 minutes a game,'" he recalled.

And that's how he settled on No. 43 for the UNLV jersey that he's patiently waited a year to don.

The funny thing is that in his lone year playing for the Bruins, the once highly touted recruit actually played 4.7 minutes per game, but it's not the exact number that matters. For Moser, it's about proving his doubters wrong.

The 6-foot-8 Moser should be motivated this season after missing so much time since becoming Oregon's Mr. Basketball in high school, and for him, there is a model to follow. Rebels teammate Chace Stanback also transferred from off of Ben Howland's bench and became the team's leading scorer and rebounder. Another former Bruin, Drew Gordon, is the Mountain West preseason player of the year at New Mexico.

UNLV fans should hope to hear Moser's name a lot given that he should fit in well with Dave Rice's up-tempo offense, which will need athletic big men to get up and down the court. Chances are, he'll be playing more than what the jersey number called for in the past.

The sight of new coach, yet familiar face, Dave Rice commanding his players to run and bring back a more uptempo style of attack should resonate with UNLV fans looking forward to a return to the program's glory days.

And because the bloodlines of the Runnin' Rebels program call for flashy, fast-paced basketball, the school has launched a marketing campaign called, "Let's Run."

Rice won a national championship at UNLV as a player and promised from Day 1 on the job that the Rebels would run, so now it's the team's theme.

In one television spot, the current players discuss Rice's dedication to the philosophy made successful under former coach Jerry Tarkanian. In another video, an image of a bloodied Rice during his playing days represents his underdog mentality and championship-winning past.

In order to run the Rebels first have to get in shape, of course. According to the Las Vegas Sun, they've accepted that conditioning will play a big part and have bought into their workout regimen designed to build up their stamina.

"You pretty much figured out from the first day this coaching staff was in here that if you didn't get into decent shape, every day was going to suck," junior forward Quintrell Thomas said. "Now, everybody is definitely taking their conditioning seriously. We're going through these drills now, and when the coaching staff first got here, everybody was a little gassed. Now, everyone's going through it and the recovery time is much faster.

"It seems to me that everybody is in way better shape than they were at this point last year."

That's good news for the Rebels in the early going as they hope their season ends with a Mountain West title and another trip to the NCAA tournament.

Senior guard Oscar Bellfield, one of the veterans relied upon to lead the new offense under Rice, perhaps said it best in a video that captured the filming of the "Let's Run" commercial.

"Our whole point of this video and this shoot is to get our run on," he said, smiling.

Our friends at The Mag are previewing one high-profile school per day for their Summer Buzz series. For the sake of all that is synergistic, yours truly will be attempting the same, complementing each comprehensive preview with some analytic fun. Today's subject: UNLV.

Few coaches hold as much sway over their old programs as former UNLV icon Jerry Tarkanian. It's difficult for an outsider to understand just how much soft power Tark has wielded in the days since he left the bench in 1992, but the HBO documentary film "The Runnin' Rebels of UNLV" helped hammer it home this spring. Tark the Shark built the Rebels into a national brand, gave the city of Las Vegas the nearest possible thing to a pro basketball team, and created a sense of communal identity that made him as locally beloved as he was nationally controversial.

So when Lon Kruger left the Rebels to take on the difficult job at Oklahoma and it was time to select a coach to replace him, Tarkanian made clear who his preference was: former late 70s star Reggie Theus. He was part of the UNLV family, had pro coaching experience, and now it was time to bring him home and let him usher in a new era of Rebel greatness.

Only one problem: It wasn't clear Theus was the best candidate for the job. So UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood made a rather brilliant compromise: He hired Dave Rice instead.

Rice, unlike Theus, is a longtime college assistant with experience at UNLV, Utah State and BYU. He knows the ins and outs of basketball in the West. He's recruited for the Rebels and their immediate competitors. He wants his teams to play with the style and pressure of Tarkanian's legendary squads. And, best of all, as a member of the 1990 national champions, he just so happens to be a member of the family, too. Eventually, Tark gave Rice his blessing.

If all of this seems incidental to how good UNLV will be in the Dave Rice era -- who cares if a former coach likes the hire, right? -- then it's possible you're missing something about how UNLV basketball works. In some ways, Runnin' Rebel fans are like any other: They remember the good old days, and they want to get them back.

But there's something unique about their fandom. It thrives on success and glamor, or at least it did when the best Vegas teams were running their opponents off the floor. UNLV needs the raucous support of its occasionally transient community. When the Rebels are winning and things are good, those fans can turn the Thomas and Mack Center into one of the country's most exciting places for college hoops. But if the program struggles, well, I can think of a lot of other things to do in Las Vegas on a Saturday night.

The good news is Kruger left the program, and fans' interest therein, in seemingly good shape. The Rebs finished No. 23 in the country in average attendance last season [PDF] with 13,253 fans per game. Considering the cost of tickets, parking and concessions, and all of the distractions created by the city surrounding it -- it would be easy to see UNLV games as just another thing to do in Las Vegas -- it has to be some kind of victory to know that the program's fans are very much of the die-hard variety.

In other words, the program's off-court fundamentals are strong. That's the first item of business. Here's more good news: In 2011-12, this conference is ripe for UNLV's picking.

This has as much to do with UNLV's team as it does with the loss of fellow competitors. BYU bolted for the West Coast Conference, so that's one perennial contender out of the way. San Diego State lost the majority of its stellar 2011 team to graduation and the NBA draft, and while the Aztecs will still compete, they won't be near the powerhouse we saw last season.

That leaves New Mexico, which has slowly stocked up on talent in recent seasons, to challenge a strong, deep and veteran Rebels team for the conference title. So for Rice, success could be immediate.

There are hurdles to climb. The loss of guard Tre'Von Willis removes a dynamic scoring threat from UNLV's offense. Senior forward Chace Stanback, who was arrested on suspicion of DUI earlier this year, may have to miss games due to disciplinary action. But in all, as Diamond ran down today:

UNLV returns four of its top five scorers, including Chace Stanback. The team also adds potential impact transfers in forward Mike Moser and guard Reggie Smith (eligible in December), and is welcoming back top 3-point shooter Kendall Wallace after a torn anterior cruciate ligament forced him to redshirt last season. The Rebels are stacked.

Indeed they are. Just as exciting for UNLV fans is the news that they're about to play like UNLV, too.

It's not that Kruger always played particularly slow. In 2010-11, his team's adjusted tempo was 67.8 possessions per game, good for No. 110 in the country. But more often than not in his tenure at UNLV, Kruger preferred to grind games to a halt and rely on his defense to take over. The Rebels may have been effective, but they were never a particularly entertaining team. (Last season, when they shot a collective 33.0 percent from beyond the arc, they could be downright ugly.)

Rice's hope is to recreate the Tark days by being both effective and entertaining. In June, he told Diamond he planned to install a run-on-every-possession style offense befitting a team with the word "runnin'" in its nickname. And he's even bringing the "Jaws" theme back:

Rice already has promised that the Runnin' Rebels will indeed run on every possession, and playing a fast-paced brand of basketball isn't the only tradition from the Tark the Shark era that he hopes to revive. Rice, who won a national championship playing for Tarkanian, also said the program is considering bringing back the theme music from "Jaws," which used to fire up the Thomas & Mack Arena as the team came onto the court.

The old Tarkanian days are one model for how UNLV could play. But a possibly more relevant example could be the team Rice has coached in recent seasons, Brigham Young. Under his former boss Dave Rose, the Cougars have consistently been one of the fastest teams in the country. They play ordered, secondary-break offense, one that looks for early-clock shots but is willing to pull the ball-out, reset, and then reload the attack.

Of course, BYU also had some dude named Jimmer Fredette, and it's a lot easier to play really good offensive basketball when Fredette is in your backcourt. But the basic principles could just as easily apply to UNLV. Anthony Marshall, Oscar Bellfield and Justin Hawkins are all guards capable of handling the ball in space, scoring when available, and finding open teammates for easy looks. (Marshall and Bellfield posted solid assist rates, while Hawkins limited his turnover percentage to a mere 14.8.)

Meanwhile, Stanback could be the perfect featured player in an uptempo team. He has the size (6-8) to present matchup problems, he can stretch the floor with his outside shooting (he made 36 percent from 3 in 2010-11), and he has a capable mid-range game that would look awfully good taking soft little pull-ups on 4-on-3 fast-break opportunities.

UNLV may not look exactly like the Tark teams of old right away. They aren't going to dominate, that's for sure. But Rice has quite a bit going for him. A solid group of veterans is back for another run at a conference title. The fans are locked in. The conference is wide open. The "Jaws" theme is coming back.

All that's left is the new uptempo offense. If Rice succeeds in installing it, no one -- not even the Tarkfather himself -- will be able to question the hire.

In many ways, family and all, it's already looking like the perfect fit.

UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian brought in two junior college transfers for the 1989-90 season that resulted in a national championship.

One of those players was Larry Johnson, the former McDonald's All-American who helped lead the Rebels to the title. The other transfer was Dave Rice, a reserve on that championship team who went on to become head coach of the program after being named to the position this spring.

Johnson wanted to be a candidate for the job despite having no coaching experience, and he told Gaming Today that he's unhappy about not being seriously considered.

When [Lon] Kruger left for the University of Oklahoma and Johnson reacted by saying he would love to coach the Rebels, that bitterness returned when the administration never contacted him.

"People all over town, wherever I went, asked me if I wanted to coach," Johnson said. "They wanted me and Stacey [Augmon], knowing he had been an assistant coach. They had to hire him (as an assistant), knowing they would never consider me."

Johnson had previously expressed interest in the UNLV job to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, indicating that his lack of coaching experience wouldn't be a problem because of his talent in other areas.

"We can put butts in the seats and we definitely can recruit. There's no growing pains I would have to go through, and if I have the right cast around me, I believe I can do it. And I really believe the city would be behind me."

Johnson told the paper he had discussed his desire to pursue the job with Tarkanian and Augmon. Tarkanian supported the candidancy of another former player, Reggie Theus. Rice ultimately got the job, hired Augmon as an assistant, and has expressed how much he wants to bring back many of the Runnin' Rebel traditions to the program.

That should have ended the political chatter surrounding the position. Tarkanian made an appearance at Rice's press conference and gave out compliments about his former player. Theus quietly went about his business.

Johnson, one of UNLV's most famous alums, decided to speak out. He had told the Review-Journal before Rice was hired that he was planning to call athletic director Jim Livengood, but apparently the two never got in touch, leaving the man with the gap-toothed smile bitter at the administration.

"I don’t like those Arizona people in the administration and they don't like me," Johnson told Gaming Today, referring to Livengood's previous school. "It’s not UNLV Runnin’ Rebels no more, it’s UNLV Wildcats right now."

BYU's Jimmer Fredette twice torched UNLV last season, going off for 39 and 29 points in two wins against the Rebels. But now, it's tales of Fredette's success that will undoubtedly be used to UNLV's advantage when it comes to recruiting.

That much became obvious when Dave Rice, the former BYU associate head coach and offensive mastermind, took the job at his alma matter. And according to the Las Vegas Sun, Rice smartly hasn't been shy about linking himself to Fredette's legend.

And once he identifies the players he believes fit it best, Jimmer Fredette's success story is one that he can pitch that will grab the attention of the high school players he's currently recruiting. It's a relevant trick he'll likely be able to pull out of his bag for many years to come.

"Jimmer deserves the bulk of the credit for what he became, but the reality is he had a lot of help from our staff," he said. "And so I think the thing that really speaks volumes is that he came to us as a good player, but did not come to us as a finished product. So, I think the fact that I can actually speak with credibility in terms of our role in helping him develop and the freedom we gave him and what that did for him."

Already, Fredette's national player of the year status playing under Rice has paid dividends at UNLV.

When 2013 recruit Christian Wood committed to UNLV, he noted to the Las Vegas Sun that Rice had coached Fredette and that associate head coach Justin Hutson had coached Kawhi Leonard at San Diego State.

When Baltimore point guard Daquan Cook decided to commit to the Rebels, his AAU coach told the Baltimore Sun, "Coach Rice, we researched him, and he did really well with Jimmer Fredette."

And then there's Katin Reinhardt, the former USC commit who UNLV is after and is already getting headlines as the "Next Jimmer." It might not be out of the question because Reinhardt has already heard that kind of talk from Rice, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

"He compared me to Jimmer Fredette a lot," Reinhardt said, referring to Rice's former star pupil at BYU. "How he let him play is how he'll let me play. That freedom, being able to do that stuff, that's what I look at. Look where Jimmer got. He went to the NBA as a lottery pick. So if you could get that kind of coach to be behind you 100 percent, that's everything you could ask for."

Who would have thought that UNLV's nemesis that is The Jimmer would ever help the Rebels in some way? It was already a little awkward when the Maloofs declared Fredette a Sacramento King with signage at the Palms.

But now thanks to Rice's presence, Fredette is helping out UNLV. He even released a statement that the Rebels put out on the day Rice was hired.

"Coach Rice has such a great feel on the offensive end," Fredette said. "Working with him these past four seasons has given me great confidence as a player. I'm glad to see him get a chance to be a head coach. He deserves it."

Stephen Zimmerman is a 14-year-old who stands 6-foot-10 and possesses basketball skills not usually exhibited by a child of his age. Before even having played in a single high school game, he already has been offered scholarships by two of the premier programs on the West Coast.

UCLA and UNLV have reportedly told the teenager they'd love to have him, and according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, he's drawing attention during this evaluation period from many other big-time schools.

Look no further than the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' Dave Rice, North Carolina's Roy Williams and Memphis' Josh Pastner sitting in the coaches stands at Centennial High School at 9:20 a.m. Friday to watch Zimmerman begin play in the adidas Super 64 tournament.

"It's very exciting. I'm honored to be noticed by these coaches and happy they're coming to my games," Zimmerman said. "I'm ready to try to take this tournament over."

Zimmerman already has received scholarship offers orally from UNLV and UCLA. He and his family also are in contact with Arizona, Duke, Indiana and Kansas.

The serious recruitment of a kid coming out of middle school is rare, but nothing new. UCLA coach Ben Howland in fact received a commitment from Taylor King in the summer of 2003 before he entered high school, with King eventually de-committing to attend Duke. Rice also should feel comfortable recruiting the young Zimmerman, who will be attending Bishop Gorman High where Rice's brother, Grant, is the head coach.

"I was really excited he offered me being an eighth-grader," Zimmerman told the Los Angeles Times, referring to Howland. "It was flattering."

According to what stepmother Lori Zimmerman told the Las Vegas Sun, the focus for the family is on keeping Stephen grounded as programs begin to grow confident he'll be quite the college player.

"They're so high on him at such a young age. It does (scare us some), because it's a lot of pressure to put on a kid, so I think that's why we try to insulate him from it," she said. "The first time he was ranked No. 1 out of a camp (at last year's adidas Junior Phenom event), we were like, 'Hey, you were ranked as the No. 1 center, now go do the dishes.'"

It's still far too early in the offseason to start projecting next fall with anything resembling meaning. But here are a few things we know about the UNLV Running Rebels:

• They have a new coach, Dave Rice, a former UNLV great, 11-year UNLV staff member and former Utah State and BYU assistant coach who will be walking the sideline as a head coach for the first time this season.
• They have much of 2010-11's solid NCAA tournament team returning.
• Star guard Tre'Von Willis is not one of those returners.
• Chace Stanback, UNLV's other primary scorer, is. But Stanback could miss at least a few games for a DUI arrest he racked up in late May.
• The Mountain West will not be nearly as tough as it was in 2010-11.

That last point might be the most important of all.

Sure, how Rice handles Stanback's situation will be intriguing. And yeah, Rice will have to prove that he's capable of overseeing a program in his own right, which, for new head coaches, is always much easier said than done.

But the most salient piece of information about UNLV's impending season is how its conference gives the Rebels an almost immediate, de facto boost toward the top of the standings. Consider the offseason in the Mountain West. San Diego State lost four starters, three seniors and junior lottery pick Kawhi Leonard. Brigham Young waves farewell to national player of the year Jimmer Fredette, and also to the MWC; BYU will now play its hoops alongside Gonzaga and St. Mary's in the West Coast Conference. Colorado State, another nascent competitor in 2011, lost its two best players to graduation.

Only New Mexico, which returns former UCLA transfer Drew Gordon and impressive freshman point guard Kendall Williams -- and adds a solid batch of talent from the spring signing period -- appears poised to compete for top honors in the conference.

SDSU is rebuilding. BYU is gone. This thing is wide open.

It's hard not to see this as a benefit for the Rebels. UNLV frequently scheduled tough nonconference slates under Kruger, and that isn't going to change in 2011-12; the Rebels will have games against USC, vs. North Carolina (or South Carolina), vs. Wichita State, at Wisconsin and vs. Illinois in Chicago's United Center, among others. In other words, UNLV doesn't have to worry about skating through an easy nonconference season only to fail to gain the requisite respect and RPI boost once MWC play begins. UNLV's path to a league title is more open than at any time in recent Rebels history. The key is winning a few of those nonconference games even if Stanback faces a lengthier, far less lenient suspension than Willis faced under Kruger in 2011.

Nothing is guaranteed to Rice's team, of course. We're a long way away from UNLV and New Mexico's duel for the MWC title. But more than ever before, it appears to be a two-team duel, one UNLV has a fantastic shot at winning. All the Rebels had to do was return a few players and not go anywhere in last summer's conference realignment. The result? Let's just say, for Rice, there are worse ways to begin your coaching career.