Beating Arizona, Part II

Jerry Tarkanian

Monday, Dec. 22, 2008 | 9:54 a.m.

Didn’t I tell you that there can’t be any more fun than beating Arizona? It’s the most fun you could have. I was very impressed with the way UNLV played Saturday.

You know what amazes me? I’ve been watching the Rebels very carefully and they do a great job with post defense.

Jordan Hill, the center for Arizona, is a great player. He’s a first-round draft pick. But they did a great job on him. He got some points and rebounds, for sure, but he did not have an outstanding game.

And you just have to love Wink Adams. Even when he’s not shooting, like I’ve said, he’s still helping you by playing great ball defense, attacking the basket, getting to the free-throw line.

He’s a streak shooter, and he busted open boy. He made a big difference.

I think the way Lon Kruger has handled Wink has been great. He never gets on his back. He keeps encouraging him to keep shooting and he breaks out, he just breaks out.

When he’s not shooting well, he’s still helping you. He’s a helluva player.

I watched that game on TV and I thought the Rebels played well. The more I watch them play, the more I’m impressed with Rene Rougeau. He blocks shots, gets steals and he can guard anybody on the floor.

He sticks to guards or centers. He reminds me so much of Stacey Augmon in so many aspects. He’s a big-time player.

It’s too bad they have only one home game like that. We had seven or eight of them every season.

Have I told you how much I like beating Arizona?

The year after we won the national championship, the NCAA sends us to Tucson for the first two rounds of the tournament.

We played Montana State first and crushed them by 34 points. Then we had to play Georgetown.

Somehow, they had put us in Arizona’s locker room for the Georgetown game. More on that in a bit.

Our rivalry with Arizona was so big, when we played Georgetown, their coach John Thompson said it was the only time he could remember when Georgetown played on the road and had a great standing ovation.

Arizona fans hated us so much, they were all cheering for Georgetown.

At that time, Georgetown was hated around the country. I’m not going to get into that. They were not popular. Every place they went they were the villains, John told me.

So inside the Arizona locker room they had a basketball, a half ball. It was outside the entrance. It meant something to them. I don’t know why.

But all of our players autographed their ball. That really pissed Arizona off. I don’t know why it was special. I didn’t know the players did it.

Everywhere in Tucson, all the Vegas boosters said they were never treated like that. In restaurants, people were on their case. Arizona hated us because we beat them so much.

We didn’t hate Arizona. The rivalry got so big, but I had a lot of respect for Lute Olson because of the fact that he played a tough non-league schedule. A lot of teams played patsies, but Lute always played tough teams.

We met when I was at Long Beach State and he was at Long Beach City. We were very close. Then I went to Vegas and he went to Arizona and we became rivals.

We were the two best teams in the west every year. UCLA was way down. They weren’t anywhere near UNLV or Arizona.

They also had Matt Othick, one of my all-time favorites. It was my fault he went there and not UNLV.

Greg Anthony was redshirting, and Matt was all set to come. One of the writers asked me about Greg. I was real excited about Greg because of his defense.

I said, Greg will be a great, great point guard for us. Matt thought Greg would be a “two” guard, so Matt went to Arizona because of that comment.

I wish we had Matt. We would have won that second championship, no doubt in my mind.

That’s one of my biggest regrets in all my career. I love Matt. He and Greg and Anderson Hunt would have given us one of the best backcourts in the history of college basketball. A cinch.

We would have alternated those three guards and ran so much.

We played them, at our place, the season we won the national championship. Greg broke his jaw on a Wednesday night against Fresno State. I was devastated. It was a big blow.

I didn’t think Greg would be able to play New Mexico State that Saturday.

The next day in practice, Greg was at the doctor’s office. I thought he’d be out three weeks or a month. Greg comes walking in the gym and starts shooting!

I said, What are you doin’? You can’t play! No, he said, I’m going to play coach.

The doctor comes in and says he can play, but only in short periods. They’ll wire his jaw. They said the doctor would be there at the bench. They’ll cut the wires and he’ll go in.

He ends up playing 30 minutes! I’d never seen anything like that. We beat New Mexico State good.

Three days later, we beat Arizona by eight at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Lute canceled our series. Said he didn’t want to play Vegas anymore because Anderson Hunt had cursed at them when a loose ball was going out of bounds.

Anderson dove for the ball through the Arizona bench. Lute said Anderson cursed at them right there.

I said, Can you imagine a guy flying through the air to save a ball and still finding time to curse at the other bench? That was all b.s. They just didn’t want to play us anymore.

I’m not sure if I’ve told you this, but it is a lot of fun beating Arizona.