LAS VEGAS — Suffice to say, this isn’t what Josh Pastner had in mind when he returned to the sidelines from the television studio.
Pastner’s first year as UNLV’s coach can be summed up in a single word — inconsistent. The Runnin’ Rebels will go through long periods of sleepwalking before waking up and realizing it’s time to play and get going.
It has resulted in a mediocre season, a sea of empty seats inside the Thomas & Mack Center and yet another year of needing to win four games in as many days in the upcoming Mountain West tournament if it hopes to play in the NCAA Tournament, a place UNLV last visited back in 2013 when Dave Rice was the coach.
Saturday, however, his team showed what is possible when it does enough things right. And it reinforced his decision to leave TV and get back into coaching.
The Rebels took Nevada to overtime and with Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn leading the way with a career performance scoring 42 points, wound up getting rewarded with an 85-83 victory. UNLV is 3-0 in OT this season.
“What a win,” Pastner said. “Defensively, our guys executed the game plan. We got it done. Our defense allowed us to get our offense going.”
Gibbs-Lawhorn said of the win which got UNLV to 15-14 overall and 9-9 in Mountain West play: “We fought. We had a complete focus and held each other accountable.”
The lack of a true point guard to not only run the offense but to spearhead the defense, has been one of the challenges for Pastner. He thought he had that addressed when he brought Myles Che, a talented player who starred at UC Irvine to UNLV only to have Che break his foot prior to the start of the season, then re-injure himself trying to get back on the floor.
It resulted in Gibbs-Lawhorn, a shooting guard who had transferred from Illinois, having to play the point. It’s a hard transition for any player to make and in DGL’s case, he has done the best he could. He and Howie Fleming have tried to serve as distributors to the others and Gibbs-Lawhorn’s league-leading 20.3 scoring average will likely make him a first-team all-conference selection when those honors are announced in a week. I’m sure he would gladly trade such honors for a spot in the Big Dance.
But wait, there’s more.
The Rebels have struggled to defend over 40 minutes. They’re next-to-last in the conference in scoring defense, allowing 78.8 points a game. Only Air Force is worse. They’re 11th in defense rebounding (34.8) and ninth in rebound margin (+0.11). And this team struggles at the free-throw line, making just 69 percent of its tries, also near the bottom of the conference. So it’s little wonder they’re barely above .500.
Add it up and you get an explanation as to why this team rarely puts together 40 minutes of basketball. And it’s why UNLV has all those empty red seats inside the Thomas & Mack. Going into Saturday, the home attendance average has been just 5,183 per game.
Against the Wolf Pack, we got a taste of what consistency can look like. UNLV battled from the opening tip, didn’t sleepwalk through any lengthy lulls, took an early second-half lead and made the Wolf Pack work for everything. At one point, UNLV had built a 54-47 lead. But Nevada answered with a 12-0 run and wiped out the deficit to lead by five. The Rebels did battle back, leading 67-65 with 3:03 to play.
It went to OT and despite Gibbs-Lawhorn fouling out with 14 seconds left, Tyrin Jones got to play hero as he scored the game-winning bucket on a layup, then nearly came up with a steal to seal it. The Rebels still had to dodge one last-ditch attempt as Tyler Rolison’s 3-pointer for the win stayed out as the Wolf Pack fell to 19-10 overall, 11-7 in the Mountain West.
To his credit, Pastner has not run and hid. He has accepted ownership for his team’s failures and that the buck stops with him. He said after the loss to Grand Canyon Wednesday that this is the worst defensive team he has coached in his 15 years on the sidelines. That said, it’s on him to fix this. He’s got to spend his NIL collective resources wisely, make sure there’s enough depth when he recruits and get his team to play a more consistent brand of basketball.
Can Pastner do it on a regular basis and to a level that will bring the desired results? Can he get UNLV’s fan base to return to the Mack? There was talk of curtaining-off the balcony and turning the building from an 18,500-seat arena into an 8,000-seat facility. But that would have been a bad optic and it was rejected.
Given what transpired Saturday, they drew their biggest crowd of the year — 7,760 — perhaps it’s a sign of hope. Still, it’s going to take winning on a consistent basis for UNLV to once again make the Thomas & Mack an intimidating place to play for opposing teams. And for that to happen, it means raising enough capital to bring enough talent into the fold. But to do that, you need to win. And unless you can find a Sugar Daddy or Sugar Mama like St. John’s found with billionaire Mike Repole to bankroll the program, Pastner could find himself on a treadmill to nowhere.
Pastner has referred to it as a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Which comes first? The winning brings in the crowds or the crowds generate the energy and spurs the team on to victory.
Football did it by winning, first with Barry Odom, then with Dan Mullen. People saw the success on the field and they began showing up at Allegiant Stadium. There’s no question that if basketball is winning people will show up again.
“We’ve got to win games to earn their trust,” Pastner said Friday of the fan base. “It’s on me and us to get the job done.”
So far, there’s lots of work to be done for that to happen. But we did get a small glimpse Saturday of what is possible.
