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Is UNLV underachieving this year?

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1 hour ago, quickdraw said:

I am amazed by all of the talk about the next or next two recruiting classes. As of now we will have 3 openings next year and one has been taken by a JC transfer Junior 2 star small forward. The other has been taken by a Freshman 2 star point guard. That leaves 1/one opening to have this better than this recruiting class. Menzies isn't DR who would run off 5 or 6 players to bring in a new group because he wasn't committed to living up to his promises. The only player that may be frustrated enough to leave on their own is Poyser  and he isn't exactly a hot commodity right now.

To expect an automatic big uptick in MM's recruiting just because he's at UNLV or because DR managed to find a way to bring in his group of so called "Players". He will need to prove it to me before I believe it because I've gone down that road too many times to just be all in any more. I want MM to succeed because I want UNLV to succeed but he has already built a record completely different from what we all want here and just "Hoping" for a different result hasn't exactly worked all that well to this point now, has it? 

Menzies, whether he likes it or not, doesn't have time on his side to do a long rebuild. The program is getting crushed with the lack of revenue and took a beating this year. This isn't good news at all for unlv, which is trying to repair its image after last years fiasco. 

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Fun little "what if" type article. The short of it is if UNLV could just be average around the basket they would be having a season that met or exceeded expectations. Kind of exonerates Menzies.  Players just can't hit shots. 

 

http://runrebs.com/2017/02/13/despite-six-game-losing-streak-unlv-excited-marvin-menzies/

UNLV has lost six consecutive games. This year’s team sits at 10-16, equaling the worst winning percentage in program history.

Normally this is where you would find a breakdown of what went wrong on UNLV’s final possession in Saturday’s 76-74 loss to San Jose State. But instead, here’s why UNLV should be excited for a future with Marvin Menzies leading the Runnin’ Rebels.

Evaluating Menzies in 2016-17 must be done with a dominant thought: Menzies can’t make shots for his players.

Yes, this team is bad. UNLV has choked games away in the final minutes. Menzies often complains that his players aren’t following the scouting report. There are clearly major flaws in a team that sits six games under .500.

The Rebels rank dead last in the Mountain West in two-point field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage in conference games. UNLV is just 0.3 percent away from claiming title of worst free throw shooting team in the Mountain West as well.

UNLV ranks 267th in the nation in effective field goal percentage on unguarded spot up opportunities, per Synergy Sports.

UNLV ranks 344th in the nation in field goal percentage at the rim, per Hoop Math.

A coach is supposed to get his team shots at the rim, open jumpers and free throw opportunities. UNLV can’t score at an efficient level in any of those situations.

Of the six straight losses, four have come by single digits. Three of those four close losses can be directly attributed to missed layups.

Against Wyoming, UNLV lost by a single point and shot 44.4 percent at the rim. The road game against San Jose State resulted in a four-point loss after UNLV shot 34.8 percent at the rim. Then Saturday’s home loss to the Spartans was by two points, while UNLV made 45.8 percent of its layups.

In all three games, if UNLV simply shoots above 50 percent on layups, the Rebels win. The national average on shots at the rim is around 60 percent. All UNLV needed to do was be 10 percent worse than the national average and Menzies has three more wins.

Those three wins would have eliminated the six-game losing streak. UNLV would be 13-13 right now. The Rebels would be 6-7 in the Mountain West and challenging for one of the five spots that get a bye in the Mountain West Tournament.

Menzies would be a candidate for Mountain West Coach of the Year.

And it is fair to pin all of this on missed shots. UNLV’s defense has fallen off in Mountain West play, but overall the Rebels defense ranks slightly behind the national efficiency average, per Ken Pom. It isn’t a defense that will win the conference, but the defense gets enough stops to give UNLV chances to win.

While the execution, communication and listening skills haven’t been great this season, Menzies still finds a way to draw up beautiful sets to get good shots.

Trailing San Jose State by three in the final minute, Menzies got his best three-point shooter a look from beyond the arc.

This play is wonderful. Situationally, UNLV trailed by three and Menzies found a way to get his best shooter—and the only efficient Rebel on Saturday—a chance to tie the game.

Strategically, Menzies took advantage of the two best skill sets on his offense: Jovan Mooring reading ball screens and Tyrell Green shooting.

Mooring, who had eight assists, was carving through the Spartans ball screen defense all game. San Jose State, as most teams have started to do, was using a double team or a hard hedge to get the ball out of Mooring’s hands. Opponents are making someone other than Mooring make plays. But the Spartans zone didn’t account for Green flashing to the top of the key until it was too late.

Plus, San Jose State had thrown a curveball at UNLV. After playing man-to-man defense for nearly the entire game, the Spartans switched to a 2-3 zone in the final minutes. Undeterred by the change, Menzies was able to get his team to execute a play for an open three.

More shot making like that and the narrative around Marvin Menzies’ first season at UNLV is completely different.

On top of the missed layups, UNLV has been playing without its best player in Dwayne Morgan. He may not be the most efficient offensive player, but it is easy to say Morgan could be worth a few points each game, another factor that could have turned those close losses into close wins.

A healthy Dwayne Morgan and some finishing at the rim would have completely changed the attitude surrounding UNLV basketball in 2016-17.

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6 hours ago, toonkee said:

Of the six straight losses, four have come by single digits. Three of those four close losses can be directly attributed to missed layups. 

Those three wins would have eliminated the six-game losing streak. UNLV would be 13-13 right now. The Rebels would be 6-7 in the Mountain West and challenging for one of the five spots that get a bye in the Mountain West Tournament.

Menzies would be a candidate for Mountain West Coach of the Year.

More shot making like that and the narrative around Marvin Menzies’ first season at UNLV is completely different.

On top of the missed layups, UNLV has been playing without its best player in Dwayne Morgan. He may not be the most efficient offensive player, but it is easy to say Morgan could be worth a few points each game, another factor that could have turned those close losses into close wins.

A healthy Dwayne Morgan and some finishing at the rim would have completely changed the attitude surrounding UNLV basketball in 2016-17.

i like mike, this is exactly what i've been saying. all of this doom and gloom this year is way over the top.

 

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To answer the OP's question in the thread title - yes, I think they're underachieving. I expected the Rebels to have a winning record at this point.

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Just like old times. Even Grimala is at a loss for trying to find something relevant to post about so he falls back on the "OH YEAH, well who are you going to believe, me or you own lying eyes". "Well if we had only scored another point here or there", "I didn't expect more than 10 wins", "Just wait until next year", "It's going to take a few years". Well next year will come so we'll deal with that soon enough or well some of us will and the rest will ignore it and buy into even lower expectations with the same excuses.

 

We are what we are and where we are.... again for the same reasons, primarily the lack of commitment to our program, from all possible sides. If nothing ever changes then nothing will change. The University will continue to get what they get because they continue to do what they do. While I don't like or agree with that I'll still have my butt in my seat in the T&M where it's been since the T&M opened in "83" because I'm a Rebel fan. Enough other people don't show up at the games or buy tickets to make the point of the value of the product on the floor.

Welcome to acceptable mediocrity. Get comfortable because this is the neighborhood we have "chosen" to live in. On a positive side at least our good friends UNM and SDSU has decided to come along to keep us company.

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Like most I thought things would be bad, no NCAA or NIT, pretty unlikely to compete for a conference title, but I didn’t think they would be competing for last place either.  This was a bit worse than expected.  

I didn’t think they would be very good offensively.  No point guard, no back to the basket presence, didn’t think overall they would be a very good shooting team, particularly from three.

That said, the shooting has been even worse than I thought. 335th in overall shooting percentage, 270th behind the arch, 331st effective field goal percentage.   

Biggest disappointment for me though has been at the defensive end.  While I didn’t think they would perform that well at the offensive end I did think they would be half way decent defensively.  

They had on paper heading into the season some decent parts.  Shot blocking potential in Dembele, Clyburn as I recall was his conference’s defensive player of the year.  They have some good athletes, pretty good quickness/length on the perimeter.  

The results though haven’t been there.  226th in shooting percentage, 269th in three point percentage, 276th in opponent turnovers per game.  Given the offensive shortcomings heading in those numbers had to be better.  

Hopefully there won’t be too much turnover in the off season as some degree of continuity is important.  However, Marvin and the staff do need to try and maximize the scholarships they have available as they could use an upgrade in the talent department.  

Have to hope the point guard sitting out will deliver, and landing a productive big in McCoy obviously would be huge. Need to add a shooter or two for spacing.  

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16 hours ago, quickdraw said:

I am amazed by all of the talk about the next or next two recruiting classes. As of now we will have 3 openings next year and one has been taken by a JC transfer Junior 2 star small forward. The other has been taken by a Freshman 2 star point guard. That leaves 1/one opening to have this better than this recruiting class. Menzies isn't DR who would run off 5 or 6 players to bring in a new group because he wasn't committed to living up to his promises. The only player that may be frustrated enough to leave on their own is Poyser  and he isn't exactly a hot commodity right now.

To expect an automatic big uptick in MM's recruiting just because he's at UNLV or because DR managed to find a way to bring in his group of so called "Players". He will need to prove it to me before I believe it because I've gone down that road too many times to just be all in any more. I want MM to succeed because I want UNLV to succeed but he has already built a record completely different from what we all want here and just "Hoping" for a different result hasn't exactly worked all that well to this point now, has it? 

Below is a link to an article on the recruiting situation at UNLV.  Menzies and LaFleur will do just fine.  Give it time.  Both are top notch.

http://www.scout.com/college/unlv/story/1754538-recruiting-update-2-12-2017

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1 hour ago, quickdraw said:

Just like old times. Even Grimala is at a loss for trying to find something relevant to post about so he falls back on the "OH YEAH, well who are you going to believe, me or you own lying eyes". "Well if we had only scored another point here or there", "I didn't expect more than 10 wins", "Just wait until next year", "It's going to take a few years". Well next year will come so we'll deal with that soon enough or well some of us will and the rest will ignore it and buy into even lower expectations with the same excuses.

 

We are what we are and where we are.... again for the same reasons, primarily the lack of commitment to our program, from all possible sides. If nothing ever changes then nothing will change. The University will continue to get what they get because they continue to do what they do. While I don't like or agree with that I'll still have my butt in my seat in the T&M where it's been since the T&M opened in "83" because I'm a Rebel fan. Enough other people don't show up at the games or buy tickets to make the point of the value of the product on the floor.

Welcome to acceptable mediocrity. Get comfortable because this is the neighborhood we have "chosen" to live in. On a positive side at least our good friends UNM and SDSU has decided to come along to keep us company.

I get your pessimistic view on the program. No doubt it's a total disaster and I'm stunned at the apathetic reporting in Vegas on the program as well. "Hey there's always next year, 10-20 record. Oh well, and by the way TKM says the department miscalculated the projected revenue by 1.8 million dollars. She's done a great job, deserved her extension and getting a fantastic reward at the foundation." 

 

We're not going to really fix things until we get wholesale changes at the top. There will be some improvement (can't get any worse) but not sure we turn into a top 25 program anytime soon. 

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5 minutes ago, BleedRed702 said:

Mike moved over to the Las Vegas Sun. Tyler Bischoff is now at runrebs. 

I thought mike was stil doing both, I didn't look at who wrote this. I have to say I'm really surprised that Bischoff wrote this, he's usually so anti- everything, and I love to hate him on twitter. I guess credit where it's due. 

And thanks. 

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4 minutes ago, 4UNLV said:

I thought mike was stil doing both, I didn't look at who wrote this. I have to say I'm really surprised that Bischoff wrote this, he's usually so anti- everything, and I love to hate him on twitter. I guess credit where it's due. 

And thanks. 

I don't know. I thought Mike was finished at runrebs. Maybe he is still writing here and there? I haven't really checked. And I agree. Tyler loves to bash on UNLV and be really negative. 

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Guest RoscoesDad
1 hour ago, Rosegreen said:

I get your pessimistic view on the program. No doubt it's a total disaster and I'm stunned at the apathetic reporting in Vegas on the program as well. "Hey there's always next year, 10-20 record. Oh well, and by the way TKM says the department miscalculated the projected revenue by 1.8 million dollars. She's done a great job, deserved her extension and getting a fantastic reward at the foundation." 

 

We're not going to really fix things until we get wholesale changes at the top. There will be some improvement (can't get any worse) but not sure we turn into a top 25 program anytime soon. 

UNLV has had subpar ADs for the last 25+ years.  But like many UNLV fans, they only seemed to get upset over TKM>  Why did Livengood got a pass for doing a far worse job, not raising any money, cutting revenue bodybag games, and making perhaps the 2 worst hires in the history of UNLV's sorry athletic history?  

I am not saying TKM is a good AD or is absolved from blame or even deserves to keep her job.  I am just curious as to why all these UNLV fans losing their shit over TKM were nowhere to be found while Livengood was doing a 10x worse job???????

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32 minutes ago, RoscoesDad said:

UNLV has had subpar ADs for the last 25+ years.  But like many UNLV fans, they only seemed to get upset over TKM>  Why did Livengood got a pass for doing a far worse job, not raising any money, cutting revenue bodybag games, and making perhaps the 2 worst hires in the history of UNLV's sorry athletic history?  

I am not saying TKM is a good AD or is absolved from blame or even deserves to keep her job.  I am just curious as to why all these UNLV fans losing their shit over TKM were nowhere to be found while Livengood was doing a 10x worse job???????

Livengood wasn't perfect but he wasn't anywhere near the disaster that TKM is. Fundraising tripled under Livengood and he cut body bag games to help the football program actually win games. Which by the way his first hire, Hauck actually had a bowl appearance. 

I didn't like his handling of the Kruger saga by letting him go to Oklahoma but that was a tough time economically rather than like under TKM where the programs absolutely suck and nobody bothers showing up to watch the games. I didn't see Livengood extending 3 different coaches and then firing them almost immediately after the fact. 

I also didn't see Livengood turn the men's basketball head coach opening into a national laughingstock by crying to the media that Cronin promised he would sign with unlv. Then going to bungle it further by hiring a HC that has a penchant for hop scotching to different jobs who then left after 7 days on the job but not before chasing everyone off the roster. 

And Livengood is 10x worse? No. 

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Guest RoscoesDad
19 minutes ago, Rosegreen said:

Livengood wasn't perfect but he wasn't anywhere near the disaster that TKM is. Fundraising tripled under Livengood and he cut body bag games to help the football program actually win games. Which by the way his first hire, Hauck actually had a bowl appearance. 

I didn't like his handling of the Kruger saga by letting him go to Oklahoma but that was a tough time economically rather than like under TKM where the programs absolutely suck and nobody bothers showing up to watch the games. I didn't see Livengood extending 3 different coaches and then firing them almost immediately after the fact. 

I also didn't see Livengood turn the men's basketball head coach opening into a national laughingstock by crying to the media that Cronin promised he would sign with unlv. Then going to bungle it further by hiring a HC that has a penchant for hop scotching to different jobs who then left after 7 days on the job but not before chasing everyone off the roster. 

And Livengood is 10x worse? No. 

You're so deluded it's not even worth it.

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2 hours ago, RoscoesDad said:

 I am just curious as to why all these UNLV fans losing their shit over TKM were nowhere to be found while Livengood was doing a 10x worse job???????

In a nutshell he delivered Rice so in their eyes he was fabulous.

Livingood was awful, the Rolllie Massamino of ADs. Barely lifted a finger to try and keep the second best coach in the history of the men's basketball program when all he wanted was a little more money for himself and assistants, hired Bobby Hauck, led just as big a sham of a coaching search when Kruger left and  ram roded through someone with a rather pedestrian resume like Rice had.

On the Mt Rushmore of UNLV lousy ADs Jim has his rightful place.  

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One person's pessimism is another person's realism. We can look at pie in the sky recruiting articles also about how our name is on a 2017 players list and then another from 2019. Let's not forget those 2- 3 star guys. All of that means zilch. What does matter is who we actually have. This whole program is 2 years out because next year is all but set at this point. We will be relying on player development of primarily the guys we have right now so don't expect a miracle to appear on the horizon.

This year I expected nothing to start with but I was watching to see if we could improve on:

  1. Basketball fundamentals
  2. Sound defensive principled play
  3. Effort and discipline/focus for 40 minutes
  4. Improvement with player and team play over the course of the season. 

So basically no matter where we started I only wanted to see things improve over the course of a season where a "Program" actually resembled being built. You know something different from the previous 4 years. Well 1 year down, because I don't expect to see much change at this point, 2 to go.

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Guest RoscoesDad
6 minutes ago, Ernie Baer said:

In a nutshell he delivered Rice so in their eyes he was fabulous.

Livingood was awful, the Rolllie Massamino of ADs. Barely lifted a finger to try and keep the second best coach in the history of the men's basketball program when all he wanted was a little more money for himself and assistants, hired Bobby Hauck, led just as big a sham of a coaching search when Kruger left and  ram roded through a lousy coach (Rice) to boot.

On the Mt Rushmore of UNLV lousy ADs Jim has his rightful place.  

Jim was their wonder boy.  Notice that the poster above credited Livengood for hiring Hauck who went to a bowl game!  Great hire!  

The same guy(s) deride TKM for extending Hauck after the bowl season.  And they would have blamed her if she didn't extend Hauck, after all what kind of rookie AD doesn't extend a coach who just took a program to a bowl game for the first time in a decade!   These guys play both sides of the coin so they can always be right.  Same thing they did with Rice.

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1 hour ago, RoscoesDad said:

You're so deluded it's not even worth it.

Speak for yourself. 

Like I said, I don't think Livengood was all that great but he actually some success to point to. Unlike TKM, he had the football program go to a bowl game and basketball team was making NCAA appearances. He tripled fundraising during economically tough times. You know, the "Great Recession". 

Your gal, TKM has nothing to show for her shitty work at unlv. Doesn't even have the excuse of a poor economy to cover up her shitty work. She's a joke that gives out contract extensions and then promptly fires them.

I mean here is what is embarrassing. Not only does Reno fire their football coach after absolutely creaming us on the field, but TKM extends Sanchez, a HS football coach that's won how many games? It's a joke and I'd be laughing my ass off with the rest of the conference if it weren't so phucking sad.

You know, it's folks like you that has the state of the athletic department where it is now because you are too stupid to know any better. Instead just blaming everyone else but the actual culprit and leader of the demise. TKM. 

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On 5/13/2016 at 9:56 AM, quickdraw said:

I'll go out on a limb here and officially predict that UNLV will have a starting 5.

 

 

Not too long ago that was almost an absurd assumption.

 

This was a post of yours in May. Seemed like you understood the situation Menzies was dealt...

 

 

6 hours ago, quickdraw said:

Just like old times. Even Grimala is at a loss for trying to find something relevant to post about so he falls back on the "OH YEAH, well who are you going to believe, me or you own lying eyes". "Well if we had only scored another point here or there", "I didn't expect more than 10 wins", "Just wait until next year", "It's going to take a few years". Well next year will come so we'll deal with that soon enough or well some of us will and the rest will ignore it and buy into even lower expectations with the same excuses.

 

We are what we are and where we are.... again for the same reasons, primarily the lack of commitment to our program, from all possible sides. If nothing ever changes then nothing will change. The University will continue to get what they get because they continue to do what they do. While I don't like or agree with that I'll still have my butt in my seat in the T&M where it's been since the T&M opened in "83" because I'm a Rebel fan. Enough other people don't show up at the games or buy tickets to make the point of the value of the product on the floor.

Welcome to acceptable mediocrity. Get comfortable because this is the neighborhood we have "chosen" to live in. On a positive side at least our good friends UNM and SDSU has decided to come along to keep us company.

 

How is understanding the situation of last April = Accepting mediocrity?

Accepting mediocrity would have been allowing Rice to still be in his HC position. That was the complete definition of mediocrity.

 

32 minutes ago, quickdraw said:

One person's pessimism is another person's realism. We can look at pie in the sky recruiting articles also about how our name is on a 2017 players list and then another from 2019. Let's not forget those 2- 3 star guys. All of that means zilch. What does matter is who we actually have. This whole program is 2 years out because next year is all but set at this point. We will be relying on player development of primarily the guys we have right now so don't expect a miracle to appear on the horizon.

This year I expected nothing to start with but I was watching to see if we could improve on:

  1. Basketball fundamentals
  2. Sound defensive principled play
  3. Effort and discipline/focus for 40 minutes
  4. Improvement with player and team play over the course of the season. 

So basically no matter where we started I only wanted to see things improve over the course of a season where a "Program" actually resembled being built. You know something different from the previous 4 years. Well 1 year down, because I don't expect to see much change at this point, 2 to go.

 

Nobody is expecting miracles. We're expecting progress with true realism.

The doom and gloom saying, "oh, this is how it's gonna be." isn't realism. It's pessimism  Menzies is less than 10 months on the job.

 

Continuity will be good for this team. They aren't winning NCAA games the next few years, but there are pieces here to grow on and battle in the MWC with...If we're grabbing this same talent after year 4 and 5...I'll hop on that train.

 

 

 

 

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All is well, For Rice is gone.                  

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50 minutes ago, RoscoesDad said:

Jim was their wonder boy.  Notice that the poster above credited Livengood for hiring Hauck who went to a bowl game!  Great hire!  

The same guy(s) deride TKM for extending Hauck after the bowl season.  And they would have blamed her if she didn't extend Hauck, after all what kind of rookie AD doesn't extend a coach who just took a program to a bowl game for the first time in a decade!   These guys play both sides of the coin so they can always be right.  Same thing they did with Rice.

And replaced him with a HS football coach. Terrific move. 

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