UNLV basketball’s Poyser may be right, ‘This new group will be special’

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Friday, Oct. 14, 2016 | 2 a.m.

I couldn’t name the UNLV basketball team’s projected starting lineup. To be honest, it was a struggle naming five players on this year’s team.

I’ve written a column with a similar message leading up to the past few seasons: The Rebels have good players; they’d finally give us a memorable postseason run. And, without fail, I was miserably wrong as they failed to live up to the hype.

There isn’t much optimism about the upcoming season, which begins early next month. The Rebels are projected to be historically bad. I can’t dispute preseason publications predicting they’ll finish near the bottom of the 11-team Mountain West. Some feel they’ll be dead last — that’s comical, though.

Last weekend, when speaking to two true UNLV diehards, guys who rearrange their lives each winter to follow the team, they asked if those projections were an overreaction to the turbulent offseason. They also stumped me when questioning about the lineup.

To review, yet again: The Rebels got a new coach, but he left after one week for a bigger-conference job. Then they got Marvin Menzies, who was hired so late in the spring that he didn’t have time to adequately fill the badly vacated roster.

The end result was a group of players many aren’t familiar with, guys we aren’t sure how to cheer for because we don’t know what to expect. Do we cross our fingers with hopes the defeats aren’t too severe? Do we root for improvements in time for Mountain West play with hopes of a hot streak? Or do we follow past traditions and stay away until they prove themselves?

The players aren’t as heralded as those we were accustomed to seeing during the Dave Rive coaching tenure, five of whom are in the NBA. But those teams produced two NCAA tournament appearances (no wins) and plenty of heartbreak. Rice was forced out three games into league play last season, but officials didn’t have a great backup plan and are squarely to blame for the program’s current state.

But by no means are the players to blame. We may not be able to list them by name or dissect their strengths and weaknesses, but that doesn’t mean it will be a wasted season. I won’t tell you the roster is loaded with potential, because I just don’t know enough about it to make a fair assessment.

But after spending time this week with returning point guard Jalen Poyser, one of just three returners, I’m convinced of the following: The Rebels are going to give maximum effort, they are proud to represent the name on the front of their jersey and determined to live up to program’s traditions, and eager to prove the skeptics wrong. More important, they have nothing to lose — so what if they are historically bad. For the first time in years, there are refreshingly no expectations.

“We are now thinking ‘we’ before ‘me’,” said Poyser, who was so good at times last season I wrote he could develop into a star. “Our philosophy is being one unit. Five fingers closed are stronger than one open, you know?”

“Menzies is changing this program around,” he continued. “That is what he came to do, change the program around and give Vegas what they want, which is to run and play defense and be the Runnin’ Rebels the city and fans want us to be.”

Poyser is right. If enough players work toward the same goal, good things will happen. It likely won’t happen overnight, or this season, but the following few months is more about establishing an identity for future seasons than it is winning a Mountain West title or NCAA Tournament game.

If fans can learn about this team, they can cheer for this team. If we can fall in love with UNLV basketball all over again, we will feel vested in the outcome of the games. The passion of fans the past few years in defeat showed how much Las Vegas cares about its Rebels. The painful loss at home to Fresno State or (somehow) in consecutive years to UNR, or in the NCAAs to Cal, was tough sure tough to stomach.

That passion can’t die because of low expectations. Poyser and his teammates need your help. They are excited to be part of rebuilding UNLV basketball, but can’t do it alone. Remember, this is still our town’s favorite team. And, in being the optimistic columnist you’ve grown to love, this is still a subpar Mountain West. There will be plenty of spots for wins, plenty of nights when the effort Poyser talks about may be enough.

“We are all buying into what coach wants,” Poyser said. “We are going into practice every day thinking we have to compete against each other to get each other better. We all have one goal: To get better every day. That is why I feel this new group will be special.”

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21