Coaches’ friendship led to UNLV-LA Verne game
When the UNLV basketball schedule was released last summer, Rebels fans had two questions:
“Who is La Verne?” and “Why are the Rebels playing La Verne?”
La Verne, a private Division III school located in La Verne, Calif., with an enrollment of 1,700, was looking for a Division I opponent, and Leopards coach Richard Reed has been friends with Rebels coach Dave Rice for years. Reed and Rice’s younger brother Grant played AAU summer ball together as teenagers.
“We both had an open date, and it happened to work out for
us,” Reed said of Thursday’s game at Orleans Arena. “For us, we get a ton out of it. We tell our recruits we’re playing the best schedule for our level. We get to test our skills and what we do against major competition, and it energizes our fan base. It gives them a taste of the big time.”
For the Leopards, that’s all well and good. But what do the No. 20 Rebels expect to get out of it besides a likely win that doesn’t impact their Ratings Percentage Index?
“We tried scheduling a number of Division I teams, and when none were available, we brought La Verne in,” Rice said. “With the (National Finals) Rodeo in town and it being Finals Week, we needed to get the uniforms on and play before we go back on the road (Monday at Texas-El Paso).
“It’s a chance for more game experience and a chance for us to play our rotation knowing we’re not going to have Mike (Moser) for a while.”
Moser dislocated his right elbow in Sunday’s 76-75 win over California and will be out at least a month.
Back when UNLV was a neophyte program in the early 1960s, the Rebels and Leopards met regularly, including home-and-home in 1962 and 1964. But the schools haven’t met since 1965, when Rolland Todd was coaching UNLV and the Rebels cruised to a 110-82 win in the first round of the Redlands Tournament.
If a similar outcome is not produced Thursday, UNLV fans will not be happy. La Verne doesn’t have a player taller than 6 feet 7 inches and is led by sophomore guard Jourdan Simmonds, who is averaging 16.0 points. The Leopards have lost four straight and are 1-4 overall and 0-3 in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play.
“I tell our guys the goal is to be ready come February and March,” said Reed, a La Verne alumnus who is in his sixth year with the Leopards and has Division I coaching experience as an assistant at Loyola Marymount, Northern Colorado and Sacramento State. “It’s about getting better every day.
“But this is a little bit different from playing MIT or Cal Tech. UNLV is nationally ranked and has players who are chas- ing an NBA dream.
“We don’t have a false sense of who we are. Our kids are excited about playing in a game like this, and we’re going out to compete.”
Reed shouldn’t expect a huge crowd to be rooting against the Leopards. The game is not part of the UNLV seasonticket package, and Orleans Arena seats 8,500 compared with the Thomas & Mack Center’s 18,500. But there will be more in attendance than the 237 that La Verne has averaged at home this season.
Perhaps a Penny Marshall promotion might boost attendance, as the actress who played Laverne De Fazio in the hit TV show “Laverne & Shirley” could get more people to come out and support La Verne the university.
“If I had a quarter, not a dollar, but just a quarter for every time I’ve heard somebody yell out at one of our games, ‘Where’s Shirley?’ we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Reed said. “But maybe I’ll run it by our president. She loves that kind of stuff.”