Open practice giving fans a chance to get hyped for UNLV basketball

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Standing 6-foot-10, it’s impossible for UNLV center David Muoka to go around town incognito.

While his less-towering teammates can sometimes fly under the radar, Muoka is usually ID’d as a basketball player on the spot. Which means he fields a lot of questions about the Scarlet and Gray — maybe more than anyone on the team.

And at this time of the year, fans usually have one question on their mind.

“Obviously, people know I play for the basketball team. It’s kind of easy to tell,” Muoka said. “Every time I go out, they’re always asking me how the team’s looking. Whether it’s students, Uber drivers, my barber, everyone’s always asking how we’re looking.”

Muoka takes the fan interest as a positive sign.

“I think last year we had a promising stretch toward the end, so there’s a lot of excitement heading toward this season.”

And for fans who want an answer to that popular question, they can see for themselves on Friday, when UNLV will hold an open practice at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The team has been practicing in full for two weeks, and Kevin Kruger’s crew still has four more weeks to go before the season opener on Nov. 7. On Tuesday, they raced through an up-tempo session that lasted two-and-a-half hours and featured a lot of full-court action and 5-on-5 drills.

Because Kruger had time to install the basics earlier this summer, when the team held 10 practices in advance of their exhibition trip to Canada, they can now focus on actual competitive basketball.

“They’re trying to learn each other, what they do well with each other, who does what, how they react to things, how they approach things,” Kruger said. “It’s a little unique just because usually you’re still probably implementing your terminology and drills [at this point]. As much as anything, we’re just getting them out there and letting them run up and down together.”

The open practice on Friday figures to adhere to a similar structure.

Starting at 6 p.m., the session is scheduled to run about two hours. Admission is free, and Kruger wants to replicate the fan-friendly atmosphere of the open practice the team held in August before leaving for Canada.

“We’re going to have the crowd meet the team, meet the new coaches, allow the new coaches to speak for a minute as action is going on,” Kruger said. “And then we’ll go up and down and let them play and scrimmage a little bit, just so the fans can see the guys they root for and follow. We’re going to have them shoot a little bit. And at the end of it, we’ll have an opportunity for the fans and the players to be around each other, take some pictures, sign some autographs and just kind of hang out.”

For Muoka and the rest of the 2022-23 team, it’s an opportunity to answer questions with their play on the court.

“To me it will be wonderful to see all the fans,” Muoka said. “Hopefully we get a good turnout. It will be exciting to put on a show for them.”

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