Players on championship team always worked hard

Jerry Tarkanian

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009 | 5:23 p.m.

It was great getting everyone back together from the national championship team the last few days for a reunion.

They are just wonderful kids and the community has seen over the years how great they are.

I have said this many times, but you couldn’t ask for a better group of people in terms of loyalty and working hard. They were a tough group of kids who gave me everything they had.

It always bothered me how some people in the administration at the school thought negatively about those kids.

That was far from the truth. They were a great group and so loyal to me. Just some great human beings.

We played so hard. No one in the country played as hard as we did. Other coaches would always talk about how hard my guys played.

As for the game, a lot of people were disappointed with how UNLV performed last night.

But it was just the first game.

I always felt you can’t judge a team on the first game because the kids have been waiting all year to get out and play in front of a crowd.

They will be a good team. They work hard, they play good defense and they are well coached. They just couldn’t hit their 3-pointers.

I think Lon (Kruger) has a deeper team than any team we had. I think they are deeper, but I don’t think they are as good. Everyone on his team is a player whereas we never had that many great players.

I liked the new uniforms. The team looked great.

Our players used to set a lot of trends for Nike and they loved that about us. David Butler came to me one day and asked if he could wear black shoes because it shows how hard it is to play under the basket.

I told him I didn’t care as long as everyone (on UNLV) wore black shoes. Next thing you know, other teams were wearing black shoes, too.

I couldn’t sign autographs at last night’s exhibition game because I still have limited movement in my arm. I felt bad because some kids ask me to sign and I just couldn’t. It would have been scribble because of the surgeries I’ve had on my shoulder.

My recovery is going well. I feel as good as I have felt since the summer. Thanks for the well wishes from my fans.