For more than a decade, the Mountain West tournament hasn’t offered a cause for excitement to fans of UNLV men’s basketball.
The last time the Rebels advanced to the championship game was in 2013, when they lost the title to New Mexico. UNLV’s last appearance in the semifinals was in 2014.
First-year head coach Josh Pastner, who led his former teams to five NCAA Tournament appearances as a head coach over 14 seasons at Memphis and Georgia Tech, wants to change that.
“This is a great opportunity for us. Everyone starts 0-0, and you get kind of a renewed, fresh season in a sense,” Pastner said. “Obviously, the goal is to win the tournament and keep playing in the NCAA tournament.”
A turnaround like that from a season that mostly teetered around .500 would be a feat for the ages, but Pastner realizes that he and his No. 8-seeded team can’t get too far ahead of themselves.
The path begins Wednesday against No. 9 Wyoming for the Rebels, a matchup that has the team’s full attention.
“You can’t get to the end if you don’t win the first game,” Pastner said. “So we understand how important this first game is.”
No matter what happens in the tournament, the Rebels’ roller-coaster season at least showed a strong proof of concept.
UNLV is averaging 80.2 points per game, which is the highest since the 2017-18 and second-highest since 1999-00. The team’s tempo this year, the speed at which the Rebels played, is 48th in the country, per KenPom rankings — another best since the 2017-18 campaign.
Pastner said he received emails and phone calls when he was hired from fans asking him to restore the spirit of the vintage “Runnin’ Rebels.” He’s shown that he can lead a team that plays fast and scores.
“Our style of play is an exciting brand to watch, and we’ve got to be better defensively. I’ve said that a bunch,” Pastner said. “But there’s also been a lot of positives, so hopefully we can keep extending it.”
Accolades and adversity
Even the accolades garnered by Pastner’s overhauled roster as the Mountain West announced postseason awards Tuesday showed improvement.
Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn was named the newcomer of the year and earned first-team all-conference recognition, while Jones was selected to the all-defensive team and received an honorable mention all-conference nod.
Gibbs-Lawhorn’s is only UNLV’s second Mountain West newcomer of the year award winner, and the first since Mike Moser landed the honor in 2012.
Jones is the first true freshman to be named to the league’s all-defensive team since 2019. He led the league with 2.0 blocks per game, the first UNLV player to do so since the 2014-15 season.
The Rebels made multiple cases for the league player of the year award to go to Gibbs-Lawhorn, who said he thought Jones should’ve been defensive player of the year.
Gibbs-Lawhorn said the awards, along with the Rebels only being given a 3 percent chance to win the Mountain West tournament by multiple national outlets, add up to nothing for the team.
“It’s really not a factor,” Gibbs-Lawhorn said. “I’d say almost everyone that isn’t us counted us out throughout this whole season. So it’s got to the point we really don’t care what anyone thinks.”
Guard Howie Fleming Jr. didn’t earn any league recognition but he etched his name in the record books with two triple-doubles in a 10-day span this season, joining Stacey Augmon as the only two players to notch two such performances in their career. Fleming is the only Rebel to do it twice in the same campaign, and he finished the regular season as one of only three players in the country with two triple-doubles this season.
“We have caught our stride,” Pastner said. “You don’t come in here and have guys immediately understand the culture. It takes a little time… I don’t want this season to end.”
There’s one strength that might help keep the Rebels’ season alive, and it lies within the answer Fleming and Gibbs-Lawhorn both gave when asked separately what comes to mind when they reflect on the regular season: adversity.
“When you face adversity as a group of people or even with a certain person, you find out whether you guys really love each other or you guys hate each other,” Gibbs-Lawhorn said. “And I feel like everyone can agree that during the adversity and the hard times we faced, we grew a lot closer.”
Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Callie__Fin on X.
Up next
Who: No. 8 UNLV vs. No. 9 Wyoming
What: Mountain West men’s tournament
When: Noon Wednesday
Where: Thomas & Mack Center
TV: Mountain West Network (streaming)
Radio: KWWN (1100 AM, 100.9 FM)
Line: UNLV -3½; total 154½
