Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

UNLV Basketball:

Rebels going mad in first official practice of 2015-16 season

2015 Runnin’ Rebels First Practice

Steve Marcus

Alex Perez, center, is pressured by Ben Carter and Daquan Cook during the Rebels’ first basketball practice of the season Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, at Mendenhall Center at UNLV.

2015 Runnin’ Rebels First Practice

Chris Obekpa (34) throws down a reverse dunk during the Rebels' first basketball practice of the season at the Mendenhall Center on UNLV campus Monday, Oct. 5, 2015. Launch slideshow »

The position is at once the most fun and most exhausting to play. It’s the first line of defense in the full-court pressure UNLV plans to apply on every possession this season. It’s called the madman.

Every time an opponent inbounds the ball, a Rebel will stand and jump and yell at him. When done correctly it resembles an inflatable tube man found more often on a used-car lot than a basketball court.

“That’s the madman because …,” sophomore Goodluck Okonoboh paused to throw his arms around a bit, “he’s going crazy.”

Figuring out a madman rotation is one of many things the Rebels began in earnest Monday with their first official practice of the 2015-16 season. UNLV has 30 practices to use between now and the regular-season opener Nov. 13 at home against Cal Poly, which is time they’ll use to find out just how versatile this roster is and who’s ready to play the style coach Dave Rice has wanted since he first returned to campus.

“That’s a hard position,” Rice said. “You can’t play a ton of possessions at that position.”

Okonoboh might end up spending most of his time as the rim protector at the back of the zone but for now he’s getting work up front in a mix with juniors Ben Carter and Tyrell Green, freshman Derrick Jones Jr. and sophomore Dwayne Morgan, who served up his lunch and probably breakfast too with multiple trips to a trash can while practicing the press Monday. At least once he didn’t make it off the court, but freshman Stephen Zimmerman Jr. and senior Chris Obekpa were quick to help with the cleanup.

All five of the guys working on that front position are listed at at least 6-foot-7 with long legs and arms to obscure passing lanes. The goal is to work into exhaustion — achieved, just ask Morgan — then take a seat on the bench as the next guy does the same.

That’s the basic plan at all five spots so that UNLV can use its depth as a weapon while keeping each player as satisfied as possible with their role.

“Now you know that you can go all out and you can have guys come in and back you up and there’s no drop-off,” said sophomore Jordan Cornish.

The Rebels have spent plenty of time this offseason showing off the results of their conditioning work with shirtless weight-room photos on social media. It’s all in good fun, and certainly doesn’t hurt their popularity amongst coeds, but it’s also part of generating a confidence and swagger that last year’s seventh-place finish in the Mountain West does not.

“I feel 100 times better from last year,” said Cornish, a New Orleans native who cut many of his favorite foods out of his diet. “I’m lighter, I’m quicker and I’m jumping higher. … You look good, you play good.”

If the roster develops as planned, Rice’s rotation could go 10 deep the entire season. A good way to earn a spot and move up in that group will be through defensive rebounding, which Rice said would “key everything that we do.”

“You can play the best defense in the world and if you don’t get the rebound it doesn’t do you any good,” he added.

Monday’s practice ran for about two and a half hours and Tuesday’s schedule calls for something similar. Rice wants the players to feel drained to understand how much further they have to go to play this way.

It’s not going to be VCU’s famed Havoc press, but Rice is adamant that UNLV will pressure the ball on every possession, sometimes trapping in the backcourt and sometimes defending one-and-one full court to force pace. It will depend on the opponent, the situation and whether this team is ultimately capable of every game combining the conditioning, intensity and execution required to pull it off.

Okonoboh doesn’t see that as anything but a certainty.

“We’re going to be in killer-instinct mode all the time,” he said.

In other words, they plan to play like madmen.

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

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