There’s not much that needs to be said (or written) about UNLV’s victory over North Carolina Saturday night if you watched the game via ESPN2 (or in person).
Dave Rice – even minus any head-coaching experience – was the ideal choice to become his alma mater’s head coach when Lon Kruger left for the University of Oklahoma last spring.
The last holdouts that preferred former Rebels’ and NBA standout Reggie Theus – or anyone else – over the then-Brigham Young University assistant must have become full-fledged Rice converts while watching the Rebels outplay the Tar Heels for all but six or seven minutes Saturday night.
One prime element of Rice’s spiel when hired was that he was going to literally returning the “Running” to the Rebels, prompting his team to play at the same offensive pace as the program did under Jerry Tarkanian (1973-1992).
A lot of coaches talk about playing “fast” then pull the pace closely to the vest, preferring the comfort level and “safe” approach of running set plays and/or going deeply into the shot clock before allowing their players to cast off.
Rice – inherited a group of players recruited by Kruger and the former UNLV staff – has steadfastly stuck to his pledge, though, as his team’s offensive performance (including 13 of 32 shooting from behind the arc; there were also 22 assists on 31 field goals) corroborated.
And the defense swarmed the Tar Heels’ post players while putting just enough pressure on the jump shooters to obstruct their accuracy as the Rebels – check that; the Runnin’ Rebels – improved to 7-0.
They’re not going to face anyone with more future NBA players than the team they knocked off Saturday night but things are actually about to get tougher for the Runnin’ Rebels who never left the city limits during their 7-0 start:
They’ve got games at UCSB (Wednesday) and Wichita State (Dec. 4) before playing Cal (Dec. 7 in Las Vegas) and Wisconsin (Dec. 10 in Madison).
Those are four probable (the latter two) and likely (the first two) NCAA Tournament participants.
As for the Tar Heels?
Oh, they’ll be fine but they’ll have to play a lot better – their transition and on-the-ball defense struggled mightily Saturday nigh,t and they far too often settled for quick jump shots – if they are going to come out of games with Wisconsin (Wednesday night in Chapel Hill) and Kentucky (next Saturday in Lexington) with victories.
But raise your hands if you still believe that Roy Williams’ team will be one of the four playing on the final weekend of the season in the spring . . .
I thought so.
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