Mooring, Morgan among reasons for optimism in UNLV rebuild

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Friday, March 10, 2017 | 2 a.m.

The worst season in UNLV history ended on Wednesday night in fittingly painful fashion, as the Rebels let a 21-point lead slip away in the second half before coming unglued in overtime of a 62-52 loss to San Diego State in the play-in round of the Mountain West tournament.

For a program in complete rebuilding mode, that probably qualifies as rock bottom. And that means it’s now time to start building and charting an upward trajectory.

After such a downer of a campaign on the court, are there any reasons for optimism as the Rebels head into the offseason? I’ve got four:

Backcourt blueprint

If you’re looking to build a competitive team, the backcourt is a good place to start, and the Rebels will have two experienced, productive playmakers next year. Jordan Johnson is set to take over as point guard after finishing second in nation in assists in his last season at Milwaukee, which should free Jovan Mooring to shift to his more natural shooting guard position.

Johnson averaged 12.5 points and 8.1 assists per game as a junior in 2014-15, when Milwaukee was coached by current UNLV assistant Rob Jeter, and he should be able to run the Rebels’ offense in his sleep after spending this season practicing with the team as a redshirt. And Mooring proved he’s one of the toughest, most dangerous shot-makers in the league.

It’s a one-year pairing, as both Mooring and Johnson will graduate after the 2017-18 season, so Menzies has some work to do on the recruiting trail to find long-term solutions. But in college basketball, backcourts win, and next the Rebels will have one of the best in the Mountain West.

Morgan returns

After sitting out most of this season due to a labrum injury, Dwayne Morgan should return at full strength next year, and that will give UNLV a game-changing defensive presence in the frontcourt.

When healthy, Morgan was UNLV’s best and most productive player in 2016-17, sporting a team-best plus/minus rating of +7.8 per 40 minutes — and that was while shooting lower than 40 percent from the field. That’s how good he is defensively.

By contrast, Christian Jones was the Rebels’ lowest-rated plus/minus guy in 2016-17 at -12.9 per 40. Plug Morgan in at power forward in place of the departing Jones, and UNLV will have a sizeable and immediate upgrade.

Big-man factory

At New Mexico State, Menzies’ philosophy was to go big and out-muscle his opponents in the paint, and it worked spectacularly thanks to his ability to take raw, unknown post prospects and develop them into NBA players. Menzies has said he wants to play a little faster at UNLV, but there is still a place for paint production in his system, and he’s made a concerted effort to stockpile post talent.

Cheickna Dembele came to the Rebels this summer as an incredibly raw 6-foot-10 mystery, but by the end of the season he had earned a starting job and showed promise as a rim protector, averaging 2.6 blocks per 40 minutes with a block rate of 6.6 percent.

For comparison’s sake, the conference’s two leading shot blockers, UNR’s Cameron Oliver and San Jose State’s Brandon Clarke, posted 3.3 and 3.1 blocks per 40, respectively, with block rates of 8.4 and 8.3 percent. It’s not hard to envision Dembele developing into an elite shot blocker with another season of experience under Menzies’ tutelage.

And Dembele isn’t the only intriguing prospect at center. The Rebels just got a commitment from 6-foot-11 Mbacke Diong last week, and the 2017 recruit may have even more upside than Dembele. The Rebels are also still in the running for 2017 blue-chip center Brandon McCoy; he’s not in the fold yet, but it speaks to Menzies’ plan that he’s trying to accumulate as much big-man talent as possible.

Mountain West malaise

The Mountain West isn’t good right now. There is one team worthy of an NCAA berth (UNR) and a bunch of flotsam and jetsam clogging the rest of the standings. While that’s not great for the big picture, obviously, it does make it easier for the Rebels to turn this thing around, and the weakness of the rest of the league may even shorten the rebuilding period (by as much as a year, if everything goes right).

It’s not a difficult league to recruit against, and UNLV already possess natural advantages in that area (location, facilities, NBA history, glitz and glamor, etc.). Even after being eliminated in such excruciating fashion on Wednesday and posting the worst win-loss record in program history, Menzies sounded supremely confident in his ability to bring good recruits to Las Vegas.

“This will be the first year I can get a class together, even though we’re still kind of behind the clock on this class,” he said. “But combining junior college guys, transfers, potential transfers, things like that, I think we could at least get a solid foundation in. We have a good culture. We have a good staff … But there’s no question I have to go get some guys. We’ve got some new guys coming in that I like, but most of them are young. So they’ll kind of be the foundation.”

One good recruiting class can lay the foundation and bring the Rebels back to the pack in the MWC. Another good class on top of that could catapult UNLV back to contender status. The question is whether Menzies can get those two classes in the next two years, or whether it will take three (or four, in the worst-case scenario) years to gather enough talent to win.

Based on his resume as a recruiter, and the work he’s already done, I’d bet on Menzies to get it done sooner rather than later.

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