UNLV basketball beginning the work for summer at Mendenhall Center

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Tuesday, June 14, 2022 | 2 a.m.

The start of the 2022-23 college basketball season is five months away, but inside the Mendenhall Center it’s a flurry of activity as UNLV enters one of the most important stretches of the offseason.

The team began voluntary summer workouts last week, meaning most of the returning players, coaches and newcomers are on the court together for the first time since last season ended.

The NCAA gives Division I programs an eight-week window during which coaches can work with players for up to eight hours per week (four hours for on-court instruction, four hours for strength and conditioning). It’s a valuable resource for coaches like Kevin Kruger, who is heading into his second year at the helm.

Kruger’s goal for summer workouts is to give the players a clear understanding of how things operate at UNLV and what is expected of them.

“We just want to make sure they spend time together and get a lot of shots up,” Kruger said. “We don’t want them to be on their feet too much, but we want them to understand how we do things. The culture, the everyday life at UNLV, incorporate the things we want to do on the court and the style we play. We want to make sure they get reps, so when those first few practices roll around they understand what it’s going to be like and what we want.”

The team is not completely whole yet. Incoming freshman Keyshawn Hall, who committed on June 4, is on campus but has yet to be cleared to participate. Returning senior Victor Iwuakor is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, and senior transfer Elijah Harkless is still at Oklahoma wrapping up his classes.

There are also two open scholarship slots, meaning Kruger is working with eight players out of a possible 13-man roster.

While filling the two open scholarships before the summer window would have given those hypothetical newcomers a leg up on acclimating to UNLV, Kruger is content to let the process play out and journey further into the offseason before making more roster moves.

“We’re okay waiting,” Kruger said. “Right now we want to make sure we add the right pieces to the team. With the foreign trip, I don’t think we want to rush into anything and add people just to add them.”

The foreign trip he references is UNLV’s preseason exhibition tour, which will see the Scarlet and Gray head to Vancouver to take on three Canadian university teams from Aug. 15-20. The NCAA allows schools to schedule a foreign exhibition trip every three years, and one of the big benefits is that teams get to hold 10 full practices leading into those games.

Kruger believes the extra practices and the game experience will benefit a UNLV squad that figures to feature as many as eight new players by the time opening night tips off in November.

“I think the foreign trip is huge,” he said. “Having those 10 practices, having that opportunity to play together before the official season starts, I think that’s critical in an era where there’s so many transfers all the time. This gives our team an opportunity to get some of those early-season stumbles or speed bumps and maybe get through them before the official season starts.”

As for the team he’s got on the court now, sweating it out in June, Kruger likes what he sees.

“I think what’s really stuck out is how hard they work,” Kruger said. “We haven’t had any moments of having to get them going or anyone not enjoying putting the work in. That’s a positive for a coaching staff.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.