You can’t erase November and December.
That would be against the rules.
But you can judge UNLV’s basketball team from that point on.
And here’s the truth: Coaches want more than anything else for their team to be better at the end of a season than its beginning.
And the Rebels were that.
You wouldn’t have seen or known it Thursday, when UNLV was sent home from the Mountain West tournament by an 80-60 final to top-seeded Utah State at the Thomas & Mack Center.
The conference champion that No. 8 seed UNLV beat twice this season was simply better at most everything this time.
Better. Tougher. All of it.
The Aggies even had a more robust and louder fan base for this quarterfinal, and that part wasn’t close.
If you didn’t know better, you would have sworn this was Logan, Utah. It was that one-sided.
Seven of 10
So it’s over, Josh Pastner’s first season as UNLV coach. A final record of 17-16. But credit him and his staff for improving the Rebels throughout the season for a team with 13 new faces.
They won seven of their final 10 games before Thursday.
Take away this loss to Utah State and it isn’t the same UNLV side that fell to the likes of UT Martin and Montana and Tennessee State. Not the same by far.
Sure. There were season-long injuries that cost UNLV a lot. But the healthy bodies adapted over time.
You never knew for a few months what you might get night in and night out from the Rebels, but things became more consistent down the stretch of the season.Things weren’t as much of a roller coaster as they were early on.
When good, UNLV came to have an identity.
Pastner’s take on his team’s final game: That the one thing the Rebels do as well as most nationally — get into the paint and make plays — didn’t occur near enough.
That a UNLV team whose issues this season were mostly confined to the defensive end didn’t show up offensively.
Nineteen turnovers certainly didn’t help the Rebels. Neither did several quick or bad shots that allowed Utah State to open a 37-23 halftime lead.
It wasn’t near UNLV’s day. Most of that was because of the Aggies (26-6).
A contender?
It will be a new-look Mountain West next season and gone will be some of the league’s best programs. Among those jumping to the Pac-12 are Utah State, San Diego State and Boise State. All quite capable when it comes to basketball.
But it will also open the door for a program such as UNLV to potentially make a significant leap into contender’s status. There is undoubtedly much work to do, on and off the floor.
Nobody knows yet what the roster might look like. It’s life in college sports nowadays. Retention is always a grind. The transfer portal awaits those leaving and those Pastner will recruit. There will be both sides of it for sure.
It’s a process.
“Part of the issues in the past, is maybe you want to get to the third-floor roof deck pool without having the basement built, the first floor built, the second floor built,” Pastner said. “I don’t want it to be forever. But we made good steps and strides this year in how we want to do things. We will build on that.
“I have a vision that I want us to bring it back, but it’s not going to happen by the snap of the fingers. We had a little taste of it here and there, but it’s going to be an absolute kick, fight, scratching and clawing our way to get this thing continuing to build in the right way … It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be really hard. Really, really hard. But I believe we have a good pathway, and hopefully we can get it done and get people back in the stadium and have a great season next season.”
Look. Any season that ends 17-16 doesn’t open many eyes. But the UNLV team you saw over the last month or so wasn’t the same as November and December.
It got much better, and Pastner deserves credit.
You just wouldn’t have known it Thursday. This one wasn’t close.
You know — here in Logan, Utah.
Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.
