What you need to know about UNLV’s exhibition trip to Canada

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022 | 2 a.m.

UNLV’s men’s basketball team is heading north for the summer — or at least for the rest of this week.

The NCAA allows basketball programs to play preseason exhibition games outside the country every three years, and UNLV today will begin a series of contests against Canadian competition designed to give the team a head start on the 2022-23 regular season.

The last time UNLV took advantage of the exhibition window was in 2016, when first-year head coach Marvin Menzies took his new squad to the Bahamas. (They dropped the first game of that trip to the University of Toronto, foreshadowing one of the worst seasons in program history.)

This year’s foreign excursion is actually overdue. UNLV was set to head to Canada in the summer of 2020 ahead of T.J. Otzelberger’s second year at the helm, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to those plans. Now, following 10 full practices, Kruger and company will set a course for British Columbia to take on three Vancouver-area universities in four days.

Here’s what you need to know about the trip:

Transfer debuts

Kruger rebuilt the roster over the offseason by importing seven college transfers, and six of them will make their debuts on the Canada trip.

Senior guard Eli Parquet (Colorado) is a defensive pest. Senior wing Luis Rodriguez (Mississippi) is versatile. Senior center Karl Jones (Southwest CC) provides muscle in the middle. Sophomore guards Shane Nowell (Arizona) and Jackie Johnson (Duquesne) bring speed and scoring touch.

And junior forward Isaiah Cottrell may be the most intriguing piece. The 6-foot-10 former Bishop Gorman star was a top recruit, but injuries held him back in his two years at West Virginia. Now Cottrell is healthy and sporting a sweet shooting touch, and these exhibition games could serve as his coming-out party.

Kruger is high on the group as a whole.

“A lot of guys that have logged a lot of minutes over their careers at other schools,” Kruger said. “The guys that decided to come over, we’re really excited about.”

Excused absences

One transfer who won’t play in Canada is senior guard Elijah Harkless, and that’s a bummer. Harkless is projected to be the main man for UNLV this season after averaging 10.0 points per game at Oklahoma last season, but a knee injury has kept him sidelined so far.

Senior forward Victor Iwuakor is also not going to suit up on the trip, as he is still recovering from shoulder surgery.

Kruger said both were expected to be healthy for the start of the season, and they participated in Friday’s practice in limited fashion, taking part in some noncontact drills.

Who’s the point?

Who’s going to be the point guard when the season begins? The Canada games may give us a preview of UNLV’s strategy.

Senior Jordan McCabe started last year, and he qualifies as a “true point guard,” but UNLV bolstered its backcourt in the offseason by adding Harkless, Parquet and Johnson, all of whom could be considered combo guards with some point skills. And then there’s returning sophomore Keshon Gilbert, another combo type who has looked like UNLV’s best player in summer practices.

So will Kruger stick with a true point guard, or will he go “positionless” and trust the offense to a committee of ballhandlers?

“I think we’ve got a little bit of both on this team,” Kruger said. “We’re going to put the ball in the person’s hands who is going to make good decisions, not going to turn it over, make plays for his teammates. With this group I think that could be a number of people. I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be the same person every night. This could be a situation where two or three guys step up and make plays for each other and we can share it and spread it around.”

Lineup experimentation

Point guard isn’t the only question mark for the Scarlet and Gray, so the three exhibition games should serve as a valuable opportunity for Kruger to try out different players and lineup combinations against live competition.

Kruger said the advance scouting has been light for the University of British Columbia (today), the University of Calgary (Wednesday) and the University of the Fraser Valley (Friday), so some of the lineups and rotations may have to be figured out on the fly.

“We want to see guys in situations, see what they do,” he said. “A lot of it is throwing our guys out to the wolves a little bit and having them communicate and talk and see what they can figure out. I think that’s going to be the fun part of it.”

Fun factor!

Like any family trip, this should be a memorable experience filled with fun moments for all involved. At least, that’s Kruger’s goal.

Asked how he’ll prioritize on-court results against getting everyone some playing time and letting his kids have a good time off the court, Kruger leaned toward the intangibles.

“At this point, we want it to be fun,” Kruger said. “But it can be fun and you can still be challenged (on the court) and learn a lot of things. We’ll make sure it’s fun.”

Keshon Gilbert breakout

Gilbert has a different understanding of the trip.

Asked what immediately comes to his mind when he thinks of Canada, the sophomore responded simply: “Wins.”

Known for his grind-it-out attitude and competitive streak, Gilbert has upped his game this summer and has looked downright dominant for long stretches of practice. The biggest difference is on offense; while he’s always been a dog on defense, Gilbert is now showing an ability to impact the game with his scoring and passing.

He is also knocking down shots in practice, the result of lots of offseason work.

“I’ve been shooting every day,” Gilbert said. “I’m a lot more confident shooting the ball. Off the dribble, catch and shoot, I’ve been a lot more confident since I’ve been working on it every day.”

The exhibition games will be an early opportunity to see if Gilbert’s jumper is for real.

Shooting scarcity

Jump-shooting is not just a question that applies to Gilbert. Kruger has assembled a team with a strong defensive skill set but a poor track record for knocking down open looks.

Gilbert, Parquet, Rodriguez, Harkless and McCabe figure to take a majority of the team’s 3-point attempts, and last year they combined to make 30.4% from long range (118 of 388). That would have ranked them a lowly 316th in the nation as a team.

Proven shooters are few and far between. Jackie Johnson made 37.3% at Duquesne, and Cottrell has looked good in practice. Returning senior guard Justin Webster has shot 34.4% from 3-point distance in his career. But that’s about it.

Should fans start worrying about the 3-point streak? If UNLV comes back to the states next week having shot something like 16-of-58 over three games, that probably is not a good sign.

Theater of the mind

None of the exhibition games will be televised or streamed live, which is unfortunate for fans hoping to get a hoops fix in mid-August. But they will be available to watch via the UNLV website shortly after the final buzzer, for those with the willpower to watch via tape-delay.

For diehards who want instant action, the three contests will all be aired live on the radio with the regular broadcast team of Jon Sandler and Curtis Terry handling the call (AM 1100/100.9 FM).

All aboard?

UNLV’s travel plans hit a bit of a snag late last week, when passport complications for freshman Keyshawn Hall and senior Karl Jones became so tangled that they had to miss practice to straighten out their situations. Kruger reported that everyone’s papers are now up to date, and no one will be left behind when the team crosses the border.

Canadian culture

So what awaits the Scarlet and Gray in the great white north? An informal sampling of the players revealed most had no idea.

Cottrell, for instance, has never been out of the country. Hall has never been to Canada and seemed perplexed when one reporter asked him if he planned to try poutine, the traditional Canadian dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with brown gravy.

“The what-tine?” Hall said. “I don’t know about that. I might try it. I don’t really like trying a lot of things, but I might try it.”

McCabe is a little more cultured, having been a part of a foreign exhibition trip to Spain when he was at West Virginia, but he’s another who has never set foot in Canada.

“I’m excited to go to Canada,” McCabe said. “I’ve never had poutine. I don’t know what that is exactly. Is it fries and gravy or something like that? Other than that, the basketball games should be a lot of fun, too.”

The team does have one young man with a drop of maple syrup in his DNA, as Muoka played a season of prep ball in Canada. The Hong Kong-born Muoka has selflessly volunteered to serve as the unofficial team ambassador, even though his high school experience in Toronto came more than 3,300 kilometers from Vancouver.

Despite the cultural challenges, what’s important is that the Scarlet and Gray roster will know each other a lot better after spending a week together in the land that gave us Barenaked Ladies, “Ginger Snaps” and “The Kids in the Hall.”

“I think that’s the biggest part we’ll take away from this trip,” Cottrell said. “Building chemistry and a lot of camaraderie.”

Defense first

What Kruger wants to see on the court is a defensive mindset.

He built the roster with the intention of winning games via defensive stops, and UNLV is now loaded with plus defenders at every position. Kruger can roll out small, pesky lineups when he wants to swarm the ball, and he can go big when he wants to grind down the opposition. But that’s on paper.

In reality, Kruger wants to see his guys get after it and force the issue on defense.

“Last year we didn’t do a very good job of creating turnovers,” Kruger said. “We didn’t create a lot of points off turnovers, so I think with this group we’ll be able to get people to rush a little bit more. Force them into turnovers and run-outs, which last year we just didn’t get quite as many as we would like to.”

Look for UNLV to leave Canada with a lot of steals.

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