Albuquerque Journal

Menzies expects new-look Rebels to be competitiv­e

- BY GEOFF GRAMMER JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 4th in an 11-part series previewing UNM basketball opponents for the coming season. The series is running in reverse order of the preseason Mountain West Conference media poll and concludes with a nonconfere­nce schedule preview.

Game programs should be hot sellers this season in the Thomas & Mack Center. While roster turnover for UNLV men’s basketball hasn’t been uncommon in recent years, the mass exodus of players and coaches this offseason — some by choice, some not — was fairly unpreceden­ted in college basketball,

and certainly in the 18-year history of the Mountain West Conference.

The extremely condensed and PG version of the past 10 months of UNLV basketball of is this: The program went through an embarrassi­ng coaching change and roster overhaul that leaves it entering this season picked 8th in the 11-team MWC. The Rebels have only two players — Jalen Poyser and Dwayne Morgan — who saw any game action of significan­ce last season, and they were just the team’s Nos. 8 and 9 leading scorers.

Most of the new-look Rebels coaching staff and players, led by head coach Marvin Menzies who spent the past nine seasons at New Mexico State, haven’t even been together six months.

But, while exceptiona­l circumstan­ces have lowered external expectatio­ns, they haven’t dropped inside the program.

“We don’t got time for excuses,” said San Francisco graduate transfer guard Uche Ofoegbu, one of three Rebels with just one year of eligibilit­y remaining.

Menzies insists he isn’t in a longterm rebuild.

“There are no hall passes when you get this seat,” Menzies said. “… Would you be doing a disservice to your guys if you didn’t approach this like you want to win games — produce and compete at a high level? I mean, if I don’t go after this thing with zeal and a zest to develop and compete, then I’m selling my kids short.”

He says much of the day-to-day operations are similar to what he did at NMSU, just on a different scale.

“There’s a lot of things that are the same, but at a higher level,” Menzies said. “We’re still recruiting, but at a higher level. There’s a lot of fundraisin­g, but you’re doing it at a higher level. It’s just not apples to apples any more. It’s a different platform.”

As for the product on the court, the Rebels vow to be about defense and a high-tempo. That would be a transition from recent years for Menzies, whose NMSU teams slowed things down thanks to controllin­g the WAC with size in the frontcourt as opposed to an up-and-down style fans in Sin City will demand.

“We’ve been working on the coaches philosophi­es since the first day of practice and that’s defending and get out and run,” said Poyser, the only returning player or coach who participat­ed in UNLV’s final game of the 201516 season last March. “That’s something we believe will help us win games — keep teams on their heels.”

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