With McCoy and Juiston, Rebels have size on their side

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017 | 2 a.m.

At a time when it seems like basketball is downsizing across the board, UNLV is going big. Newly imported big men Brandon McCoy and Shakur Juiston were the key factors in the Rebels’ overpowering win over Florida A&M in Saturday’s season opener, and it was by design.

Head coach Marvin Menzies is a big believer in size, so he made McCoy, a 7-foot blue-chip freshman, and Juiston, the 6-foot-8 reigning junior college player of the year, his top targets on the recruiting trail. The next phase of Menzies’ rebuilding plan was on display against Florida A&M, as the frontcourt duo dominated the box score with a combined 44 points, 28 rebounds and three blocked shots.

Florida A&M simply didn’t have the size to match up when both were on the court at the same time, and that’s a problem most of UNLV’s opponents this season will have a hard time figuring out.

At a media session on Tuesday, Menzies confirmed that old basketball adage: You can’t teach size.

“If you compare college teams to NBA teams, that’s the biggest difference, right? The physical presence and the athleticism and so forth,” Menzies said. “It’s good to have some guys that have that body type.”

McCoy is the more heralded of the two newcomers, and he excelled in his college debut, posting 25 points, 18 rebounds and two blocks. Juiston was the more polished of the duo, scoring 19 points on 9-of-11 shooting, with 10 rebounds and one block.

As impressive as their individual numbers were, their combined impact was even greater. McCoy and Juiston shared the court for almost 20 minutes against Florida A&M (19 minutes, 57 seconds), and during that time UNLV outscored the Rattlers, 58-23.

And that was just a glimpse of how good McCoy and Juiston can eventually become. While Juiston hit McCoy with an early high-low pass that led to an easy dunk, for the most part the two didn’t play off each other on the offensive end.

Menzies wants to incorporate both of the big men into the offense more and thinks it will happen over the course of the season.

“As far as their chemistry together, I think the more they play, the better they’ll be,” Menzies said. “In terms of particularly feeding off each other from high-low type of situations, they don’t have the synchronicity that I’d like to see yet, but I think it will come. [They] just need more reps.”

Wednesday’s opponent, Prairie View A&M, is going to find itself at a significant size disadvantage. Aside from starting forward J.D. Wallace, who checks in at 6-foot-9, none of the Panthers’ other rotation players measure taller than 6-foot-4.

The Rebels aren’t just big. For a team like Prairie View A&M, the Rebels are a big problem.

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