Nicknames, Schedule Addition, Link to Hutson Interview, Rebel Legends Party

Updated Sunday 10:28 A.M.


Nicknames for up-tempo style

I'm kind of a nickname guy, so I am proposing some for the new up-tempo Rebel’s offense, maybe even some for the defense.

Option #1 – Run TMC

For those who have been into basketball for the last twenty years, this saying will bring back memories of the Golden State Warriors for which the nickname was coined (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, Chris Mullin) which was actually a play on Run DMC. In our context, run clearly symbolizes the running, up-tempo style of offense, and TMC stands for the Thomas and Mack Center – our home court. By bringing back a ‘blast from the past’ nickname it is ideally suited to the retro-style shift that the Runnin’ Rebels are making with this juiced coaching staff. Print the shirts, have the cheerleaders scream “RUN” and the crowd scream back “TMC” in quickening pace – that’ll get things moving – it’s a winner.

Option #2 -  Rice-Rockets

Do I really need to explain it?

Option #3 – Lightning in a bottle

Don’t know why I thought of it, its been used in other contexts. The words make me feel good and I think it could fit. Maybe it should be a nickname for the bench players,  “open when you need of a quick burst of energy”. Sweet.

For the Defense

Option #1 – Amoeba 2.0

Coach Rice is a student of Tarkanian, played in his system, coached in his system. High likelihood that some form of the Amoeba defense returns. That said, this time he has the likes of Justin Hutson, and Stacey Augmon to make it even better. Amoeba 2.0 is fitting and pays tribute.

Option #2 – Pound The Ground

This takes us back to the days only a few years removed, where to psyche the team up our guys would slap the court to motivate themselves and their teammates to play lock-down defense. I’m sure it was equally demoralizing to the opponent. While the Defense has been respectable since that time, it really made it fun to watch and showed the passion and heart the players put into their defensive craft.

Option #3 – Man On The Run

Fast break points lead to transition opportunities for the opposing team, because they then try to play ‘your game’ and get the basketball back up the court as soon as possible after a bucket. Man on the run symbolizes having to get back on defense after our new and improved offense schools people. Although Coach Rice had a less athletically talented team at BYU, and that was a major motivator for not paying man-to-man defense, there is sure to still be some man-to-man because our guys do it well, hence the name still fits. 

Schedule Addition

This is totally preliminary and speculative, but either the December 7 or January 7 game (both should be home games) will be against the Canisius Golden Griffins of the MAAC. Because of the unconfirmed nature, the schedule page will not update quite yet. If true, you heard it here first. 


Source - their fan boards seem pretty certain about playing UNLV, likely December 7th. 


Justin Hutson Interview

Justin Hutson recently gave an interview to ESPN 1100, mostly about Kawai Leonard and the draft, but some about Rebels
Link (doesn't work with google chrome)

Rebel Legend’s Party

Those of you who went down to Hooters for the Rebel Legends party were surely not disappointed. Notable Rebel celebs in attendance included Moses Scurry, Eldridge Hudson, John Flowers, Kevin Kruger, Wink Adams, Romel Beck, Steve ‘Chop’ Jones, Kaspars Kambala, Trevor Diggs, Warren Rosegreen, Chancellor Davis, Dave Rice, Donovan Stewart, Bobby Florence, Freddie Banks, Christian Popoola & David Hollis. It was a fun time, well managed, well attended, and free – can’t beat that. Thanks to RebelSwag for putting on an event which hopefully will become an institution among Rebels fans and Las Vegas in general. 

Met with several of the people noted above, hoping they’ll be amenable to interviews in the near future. Here’s a few pictures I snapped:

Wide range of subjects

Remember Deshawn Mitchell? 

Mr. Mitchell has popped up in the news again for attempting to make another roster. Anyone who has read RebelReign’s Tre’von Willis retrospective is aware of the interesting path Deshawn has taken since leaving UNLV. Here’s the recap:

“In addition to the lost personnel, DeShawn Mitchell asked for a release after his freshman year and transferred to Rider. Somehow, that didn’t quite work out for Mitchell and he ended up at Snow College (in Ephraim, UT). As another aside on Mitchell, he was recently dismissed from the JUCO team (playing as a “sophomore”) in February, 2011 even-though he was their leading scorer.  Bad decision to leave UNLV.” – Tre’von Willis Retrospective, Part 2.

I have always been fascinated by the whole, “where are they now” inquiry – here’s where Deshawn Mitchell is now.

After being dismissed from Utah’s Snow College basketball team in February 2011, he continued to be enrolled and earned credit with the hopes of playing D-1 again. We now learn he butted heads with the coaching staff there, which lead to the odd late-season dismissal.

In pursuit of D-1 ball, Mr. Mitchell attempted to become a Rainbow Warrior at the University of Hawaii. U of H was a big supporter of Mitchell’s, naming him one of their more prized of six recruits going into this coming season. Unfortunately for him and Hawaii, the NCAA ruled that Mitchell, who academically would have been a junior, was not eligible because he did not have enough transferable credits.

Anyone who remembers Mitchell from his lone season at UNLV remembers he had impressive hops and was quite an athletic and promising freshman. Disappointing turn of events with his multiple stops and failures at every turn since leaving the Rebels. Ironically, had Mitchell made the Hawaii roster we would be playing against him this season. Best of luck to Mitchell, hopefully he hits the books, squares things with the NCAA, and finds himself a D-1 program.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/sports/20110618_High-scoring_UH_hoops_recruit_won8217t_join_team.html

Recruiting updates

Everyone knows UNLV locked up a commitment from USC transfer Bryce Jones. The updated picture on two other recruiting targets follow the same storyline – SDSU.

J.J. O’Brien, an extremely promising freshman from the wreckage that is Utah’s coaching change disaster, was a target of the Rebels as soon as it became known that he was available. O’Brien picked SDSU over other potential suitors, likely due to the depleted roster and room to shine. As a transfer, he will redshirt for a year and be back as a sophomore in 2012-13.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/01/utahs-obrien-makes-transfer-sdsu-official/

Dewayne Polee II was a former recruiting target of Lon Kruger & Co, but he opted to join Steve Lavin and St. Johns in NY. When his mother fell ill, he sought to transfer to a school closer to L.A. to be there for her and his family. He too looked at schools who had recruited him originally, and likewise chose the Aztecs. Polee is currenly awaiting a decision from the NCAA as to whether he can obtain a waiver for the 1 year redshirt rule, due to the family medical reason. If so, we’ll see Polee in action, albeit on the opposing team this season.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/31902/sdsu-lands-dwayne-polee-keeps-reloading

Rebel Legend's Party

RebelSwag is presenting the first ever Rebel’s Legends party, here at the Hooter’s Casino (formerly San Remo) on Friday, June 24 @ 7PM Poolside. Should be a blast, go if you can, if you take pictures, send them to RebelReign1@gmail.com. Here is the flyer:

Congratulations!

Congratulations are in order to the Dallas Mavericks and former UNLV Runnin' Rebel Shawn Marion, 2010-11 NBA Champions!

Strength of schedule

Strength of schedule?

Many have figured out the layout of the 2011-2012 non-conference schedule, and we already know we’re playing a smaller field in the MWC this year, obviously one game home and one away, so the immediate impression is that this is a weak schedule, weaker that the schedules UNLV had lined up the past few years.

Why is it weak?

If you look at the schedule (feel free to click on the 2011-12 schedule tab to see the full nonconference schedule). We aren't playing a lot of great teams next year, only four made the tournament and SDSU isn't going to be good next year. To assess the future difficulty in playing an opponent, there are three main factors. 1) Quality of team; 2) Location of game; 3) Date in schedule playing them. There are other factors that could be considered, such as win streak, matchups, etc, but its far too early to look to those factors. We’ll look at those three factors for now when assessing this schedule.

Lets group the non-conference games into categories:

Ultra-Marquee

North Carolina

Wisconsin

Without question, when people think of UNC they think basketball, they think national championships, and they think Michael Jordan. UNC is a perennial powerhouse that easily scoops up McDonalds All-Americans on a regular basis. Wisconsin is more known for football, but have been a steady tournament making team for a good while and any win against Wisconsin is considered a great boost to the tournament resume.

UNC has not released its schedule yet, but by the same time last year they had five  games under their belt – enough time to make adjustments about what works and what doesn’t, additionally enough time to scout the Runnin’ Rebels to study matchups, defense, and offensive strategy. What makes both of these matchups that much harder is that we face Wisconsin on their home court, and UNC at the Orleans.  The UNC game at the Orleans (provided we get them in the draw), has historically not been a good venue for the Rebels. UNLV was demolished two seasons ago by Kansas State there, and nearly gave away a victory last season against Boise State. UNLV’s fans have not attended Orleans’ games as well as they perhaps should – insulted that the games aren’t included in their season ticket packages or, in this case, they’ll be forced to pony up for an expensive package to watch the Rebels. UNC has a good traveling crowd, and expect them to take full advantage of a trip to Vegas. To top things off, TV coverage of games at the Orleans has been spotty, let’s hope a ultra-premium opponent like UNC will fix that wagon. It will be difficult to beat the Tar Heels unless they play terrible and we play outstanding basketball.

For whatever reason, we’ve had Wisconsin’s number for awhile and have regularly beat them in tough games, our guys should use that confidence to our advantage but not let it go to our heads. A win against Wisconsin on their floor would do wonders come tournament time. We face Wisconsin on 12/10, plenty of time for their team to find a rhythm and study the new-look Rebels, so they are definitely not to be taken lightly.

Marquee

University of Nevada Reno

University of Southern California

University of California Santa Barbara

Illinois

University of California
Wichita State

University of New Mexico

Colorado State

For a team who is seeking to be better than the annual tournament appearance and maintain a top-25 ranking, these marquee games become games where we must win 3/4ths of them to be taken seriously. UNR hasn’t been good in a few years, but all indications is they are rebuilding and will be a good team soon, if not this coming season. It’s still our in-state rival, but it’s a home game this year so that’s a plus.

USC is always a big name, but has been underachieving for awhile. Don’t count on our pick up of Bryce Jones (who won’t be eligible this year) to put a thorn in their side, but hopefully he can let our coaching staff know about their weaknesses.

UCSB has caused headaches for Lon Kruger’s Rebels  for awhile, let’s hope a regime change will rectify our spotty record against the Gauchos.

Illinois should be a game that every player who was a member of last year’s squad should circle. They flat-out embarrassed the Rebels in the tournament in a game most picked the Rebels to win. Revenge should be a primary motivator, but they also could be slightly easier to take on, losing McCamey and Davis to graduation.

Cal has been mediocre as of recent, but they are still a big name – that’s why it’s a marquee game.

Wichita State is probably a team most don't know much about, but they just finished this past season going 29-8 and won the N.I.T. beating Alabama 66-57. They will be a difficult foe who we have to face on the road if they maintain or build on their success of this past season.

The Lobos are only getting better, and they will be a tough team this season. They are the odds-on favorite to challenge UNLV for the MWC title this year. We have to play them once in The Pit, so that’s never fun. Likely we’ll spit the series.

The Rams keep getting better under Tim Miles, and they likely will be slightly better next season than they were this season. Keep in mind, they did embarrass us at the T&M, so we’ll have to make sure and dominate them home and away this year.  

Filler

Washburn

Grand Canyon

Morgan State

Cal Poly

UTEP

University of Louisiana-Monroe

University of Central Arkansas

Hawaii

Cal State Bakersfield

Wyoming

San Diego State

Air Force

TCU
Boise State

Not much needs to be said about the filler teams - they are filler teams. SDSU will not have the name recognition because the vast majority of the team that carried them to the sweet 16 last year is gone. Steve Fisher is still a great coach, but the Rebels should easily destroy them, especially with the knowledge of Justin Hutson on our sidelines. UNLV must win every game we have against these bottom dwellers for us to have a legitimate shot at an at large bid. Failure is not an option.

What about the TBAs?

There are two games yet to be scheduled, December 7 and January 7. It would take a miracle to schedule another ultra-marquee or marquee opponent for either of those spots, those types of teams likely already have their schedules filled out and don’t want to bother with a potentially dangerous UNLV, especially not on our home court. Expect two filler teams, don’t be surprised if we have to fill it with a D-II opponent, which is unusual but not unheard of. Best outcome would be filling one of  the games with BYU – they still have name recognition but will be vastly inferior with losing Jimmer, but from the way the coach has talked we aren’t going to play BYU next season.

one week off, new article next sunday