Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

T.J. Otzelberger is turning around UNLV in a hurry

0212_sun_UNLVvsUNR2

Steve Marcus

UNLV’s head coach T.J. Otzelberger calls out to players during a game against UNR at the Thomas & Mack Center Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020.

The Rebel Room

UNLV ready for (early) March Madness

It’s a week earlier than usual, but the Mountain West tournament is here and the Rebels have a real chance to make some noise — if Elijah Mitrou-Long is healthy. Ray Brewer and Mike Grimala break down UNLV’s postseason hopes.

T.J. Otzelberger is all about efficiency. His ultimate goal is to get the most out of every situation, and it extends beyond the basketball court.

To that end, conversations with Otzelberger do not typically begin with “hello” or end with “goodbye,” because small talk is not an efficient use of time and therefore it does not exist in his world.

One team staffer says he often ends up talking to himself at the end of phone calls with Otzelberger, unaware that the coach has already hung up and moved on to the next task.

“That’s T.J.,” the staffer says.

It’s not personal. It’s about being efficient.

Time management is Otzelberger’s idea of fun. He will facetiously put a time limit on reporters’ questions, challenging them to get through media sessions as quickly as possible. Other times it’s strictly business, like when he sprinted out of a post-game press conference two weeks ago in order to catch a flight to watch a recruit play.

Nothing is wasted with Otzelberger — especially not time. Other coaches may have preached patience after taking over a roster in flux, but Otzelberger never asked for a grace period when he accepted the UNLV job last April. He simply recruited the best team available for 2019-20 and then set about coaching them into a respectable unit.

And Otzelberger hasn’t wasted a single second getting UNLV basketball back on track. In his first year as head coach of the Runnin’ Rebels, the 42-year-old has the team positioned as a contender to win this week’s Mountain West tournament, and the quick turnaround can be directly attributed to his no-nonsense approach.

When UNLV went through a mid-season slump, Otzelberger cut straight to the point. The team wasn’t playing hard enough, so that’s exactly what he told them.

The players who responded positively and hustled were rewarded with playing time. The ones who took longer to come around — the guys who were wasting time — found themselves on the bench.

In short order, the entire team came around to Otzelberger’s point of view, and senior forward Nick Blair says players now appreciate the straightforward approach.

“He has definitely got on my butt before plenty of times and shot me straight,” Blair says. “He’s going to shoot you straight, no matter who you are. He doesn’t have any favorites. He puts the power in your hands as far as how much you play, if you want to play. He’s a real open guy and I respect him for that.”

Otzelberger has earned his players’ respect with his direct approach and also by setting an example. As part of his battle to maximize his waking hours, Otzelberger is quite literally the first man in the building every day.

Stroll through the UNLV basketball offices at sunrise and you’ll find Otzelberger already hard at work. Hit the hotel gym at 7 a.m. on the morning of a road game and he’s there, going through his workout routine. The players have noticed.

The player who has most benefitted from Otzelberger’s hard-driving philosophy is sophomore point guard Marvin Coleman, a former walk-on who has made himself indispensable to the team through hard work.

Coleman cites Otzelberger’s dedication as one of his defining qualities.

“One thing about coach T.J., he’s just a tenacious worker,” Coleman says. “You see your head coach — you see him at practice, you see him in the office occasionally — but I see coach T.J. 20 [times a day]. Everywhere I go, I see him. If we’re in the weight room, he’s in the weight room. If we come in at 6:30, he’s already here sweating. When we’re on the court, his energy is infectious. It makes me want to work harder. If I see my head coach working that hard, as a point guard I want to be an extension of him, so I have to work as hard as he is.”

By reshaping the attitude of the program in his own image, Otzelbeger has made it easy for the players to buy in from an X’s and O’s standpoint.

It took some time for Otzelberger and his staff to become familiar with the players and learn their strengths and weaknesses, but as the calendar turns to March the Rebels have been honed to peak efficiency. UNLV is currently rated No. 64 in offensive efficiency according to KenPom.com; that’s the team’s highest ranking of the season.

Every player knows his role, and now they’re having fun with it. Junior guard Amauri Hardy went through several high points and subsequent slumps, but he finished the season averaging 14.5 points per game and on Tuesday he was named an All-Mountain West third team selection.

Hardy credits Otzelberger’s chalkboard acumen for much of that success.

“He has phenomenal offensive strategies,” Hardy says. “Stuff that I’ve never seen. Just his ability to keep defenses guessing, putting guys in different positions. Sometimes it may look like I’m playing the 4 spot, but really it’s just putting me in a spot to attack where I’m at my best.”

Otzelberger has diversified and, at the same time, simplified the playbook. Again, the goal is efficiency. Otzelberger aims to extract maximum value out of every possession, and he does that by streamlining the players’ responsibilities. When the ball is in Hardy’s hands, each set play has been sharpened to the point where split-second decisions come easily.

“Anything that gets me downhill, I’ve either got somebody like Mbacke [Diong] rolling and somebody out in the corner,” Hardy says. “I’ve really got three options. Either I’m driving, I’ve got the lob or I’ve got a corner skip pass. [The defense] can’t play those every time. It’s like chess. Next time if I drive, it’s going to be wide open. Then if you try to play the drive, now I’ve got the lob. Try to play the lob, I’ve got the corner pass. You’ve just got to keep reading the defense; it’s hard to guard.”

And that’s how Otzelberger has turned the Rebels from a group that lost eight of its first 12 games into a Mountain West title contender. He didn’t have time to waste a season on a rebuilding effort, so he squeezed everything he could out of the team he has.

“He’s been a consistent leader the whole time,” Coleman says. “Regardless of whether we were on a five-game winning streak or a three-game losing streak, he expects excellence regardless. We have a saying: Win at everything. In the classroom, on the court, in the community. He’s been consistent throughout everything.”

Now that Otzelberger has UNLV riding a five-game winning streak and playing its best basketball of the season, the players believe they can win three games in three days, which would be a remarkably good use of their time.

That’s the Otzelberger way.

“His leadership is the reason we’re playing how we’re playing,” Coleman says.

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

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