Rebel walk-on Cheaney back on team in time for work and play on Maui

By Taylor Bern

Sunday, Nov. 22, 2015 | 2 a.m.

After they went whale watching in the Pacific Ocean and before grabbing new sunglasses and feasting at the Maui Jim Maui Invitational welcome Luau, the Rebels played basketball. UNLV practiced for two hours Saturday afternoon at the Lahaina Center, and it was a return trip for the guy who is both UNLV’s newest and oldest player.

Senior walk-on guard Barry Cheaney is back on the team, and he was cleared just in time for UNLV’s trip from Paradise to paradise.

“Everybody welcomed me in like it was normal,” Cheaney said.

UNLV plays its first game of the tournament at 8:30 p.m. Las Vegas time Monday against UCLA in the 2,400-seat arena. While most guys on the roster said they had never been to Hawaii, Cheaney actually played in this gym about seven years ago for a high school tournament.

Cheaney played at Los Osos High near Los Angeles — former Lobo Kendall Williams was a teammate — and he came to UNLV as a walk-on in Dave Rice’s first season. His job in practice is to impersonate some of the best players on UNLV’s schedule, and it’s something Rice thinks Cheaney is very good at, but his eventual job will be a doctor.

Cheaney is in his fifth year of a pre-med program, and in anticipation of an increased workload he told Rice in the offseason that he had to leave the team. A couple of things helped lead Cheaney back — Rice always left the door open for a return and a semester that’s almost finished wasn’t as difficult as he thought — but ultimately it took a Poet to bring a future doctor back to basketball.

“Honestly, it was the exhibition game,” Cheaney said of UNLV’s 94-57 victory against the Whittier Poets. “I watched it online and it was tough knowing I could be there and I wasn’t.”

Cheaney approached Rice about coming back, which both men say was an easy sell, and then it took about a week for Cheaney to get cleared. His first practice was Thursday, during which he started to get familiar with the seven players who weren’t here last year.

“It seems like half of them I had no clue their name or anything,” Cheaney joked.

Cheaney redshirted in 2013-14, and over his three eligible seasons on the team he scored 24 points in 47 minutes. He’s an anonymous guy cheering from the bench on game days, except when he gets in the end of a blowout and sets off a bench celebration with his own buckets.

Cheaney has been a good scout player who helps the team get ready for games. Especially on this trip, with redshirts Chris Obekpa and Alex Perez back in Las Vegas, it’s nice for UNLV to have another body in practice.

If UNLV defeats UCLA, it will play at 7 p.m. Tuesday against the winner of Kansas/Chaminade. If the Rebels lose, they will play at 1:30 p.m., and their Wednesday game could tip anywhere from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

You likely won’t see Cheaney in any of the games, and that’s OK with him. Cheaney knows his future will be determined by the January MCAT test he’s studying for, not any of these games.

Cheaney didn’t come back for glory, only a chance to keep playing the game he loves.

“I really just missed the game,” Cheaney said. “I missed the atmosphere and I missed being around the guys.”

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.