Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Assistant coach added to the agenda for UNLV basketball

Oct 6: UNLV Rebels Practice

Steve Marcus

UNLV Rebel Assistant Coach Brandon Chappell passes during practice in Mendenhall Center at UNLV Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021.

The UNLV basketball program has encountered an unexpected, oddly-timed obstacle, as assistant coach Brandon Chappell accepted a job on Chris Beard’s staff at Texas over the weekend.

The departure leaves head coach Kevin Kruger to find another assistant unusually late in the offseason; UNLV is set to travel to Canada in two weeks for a series of exhibition games, and will now likely do so without a full complement of coaches.

At practice on Tuesday — the first of 10 sessions leading up to the exhibitions — video coordinator Will Saxon stepped into Chappell’s sneakers, running with the scout team and pitching in as UNLV went through two hours of drills.

Chappell was a key cog in his one year under Kevin Kruger, serving as a personable recruiter and an energetic on-court instructor, often serving as a point guard for the scout team in practice.

Kruger acknowledged it’s not an ideal time to be in the market for a coach.

“A weird time,” Kruger said. “We’ve got a process we have to go through, so we’ll go through it. [With] coach Saxon stepping in, filling in and being able to be on the court right now until we hire a full-time staff member, we’re really in no rush. We just want to make sure we get it right.”

Kruger presumably has plenty of résumés on file, as this will be his fifth assistant hire since taking over the program last offseason. He initially brought on Chappell and Carlin Hartman to round out his first staff (which included holdover Tim Buckley). Hartman left for an assistant job at Florida this offseason, while Buckley bailed for an assistant job at South Carolina.

Kruger hired SMU assistant John Cooper to fill one of the slots, then added Texas Tech assistant Barret Peery.

Kruger said the pull of returning “home” was a strong factor in Chappell’s decision to leave, as he is a native of Beaumont, Texas. He also likely received a significant raise. According to UNLV’s publicly available salary database, Chappell was making $203,000 per year with the Scarlet and Gray; the lowest-paid assistant on last year’s Texas team made $407,000.

The UNLV player with the closest ties to Chappell is senior center David Muoka, as he played his first two college seasons at Lamar, where Chappell was an assistant. The two developed a bond, and when Chappell made the move to UNLV last offseason, Muoka entered the transfer portal and followed along.

Muoka said Chappell met with the current crop of UNLV players in person to inform them that he was leaving for Texas.

"Obviously it hurts that he's leaving, but I wish nothing but the best for him," Muoka said. "He came and met with the guys before he left and let us know he's always here for us. It was great to have him here, but it's a shame he had to leave."

Kruger has already begun the search process for a replacement, and on Tuesday he listed some of the attributes he’s seeking in a potential candidate.

“The process started kind of when the discussion started between Brandon and Texas. There’s things we’ve got to go through, so we’re not going to rush that process or make it go faster than it needs to. At the end of the day we’ve just got to make sure we get a good guy that’s high energy, that the guys like, a good teacher and somebody that’s going to encourage the guys to want to be around here. I thought Brandon did a good job of that and I’m sure the next person who steps in will do the same.”

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

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