Where have the UNLV Runnin' Rebels gone?

By Michael Melissa Sports Central Columnist

Once the NCAA sinks their teeth in a program, it's very difficult to come back. Just ask UNLV.

After going 34-1 in 1991, their only loss coming to Duke in the Final Four, the NCAA took them to the woodshed and saddled the program with so many penalties that after ten years, the Rebels are still not the same.

The question is, though, can they ever be the team that won forty-five straight games and beat teams in '91 by an average of seventeen points per game?

Possibly.

UNLV has always been a bastion for junior college kids. Larry Johnson, J.R. Rider, and Shawn Marion all came to the Rebels through the JUCO ranks and flourished in the program. You could say it's a result of Jerry Tarkanian's influence and his ability to work with the kids, but you also need to spot the talent and work to sign the kids.

Despite falling out of national prominence and constantly drawing the ire of the NCAA uppity-ups, the Runnin' Rebels have been somewhat successful at pulling kids to the school. Thank the 1989-90 National Champion squad for some of that since kids still see UNLV as a winning program. If they won once, they could win again.

And they have a strong nucleus to turn it all around. Although they lost Kaspars Kambala and Trevor Diggs, who both graduated this past season, the Rebels still have Dalron Johnson (for the time being) and Lou Kelley to lead the team. Throw in Jermaine Lewis, who may redshirt next season after tearing his ACL during a pickup game at UNLV, and the Rebels have a strong foundation to build on.

After the NCAA levied new sanctions against the university in December, UNLV fired coach Billy Bayno, went with interim coach Max Good to finish the season, then hired Charlie Spoonhour in March. He is the perfect coach to take over the struggling Rebels. He rebuilt Saint Louis and turned the Billikens into a NCAA tournament squad within two years, and did the same with Southeast Missouri State.

Like Tarkanian before him, Spoonhour is a coach who can nab the junior college kids as well as the high school grads. He knows how to handle them and get the most bang for the buck. In his first recruiting class, the former Saint Louis coach used all five of his open scholarships signing Louis Amundson (F), Marcus Banks (G), Lamar Bigby (G), Jamal Holden (C), and Ernest Turner (G).

Banks and Turner are the only players from that bunch who will make an immediate impact, while the rest will fill minutes, which is what Spoonhour needs. A strong foundation to build a quality program on, something he did with the Billikens before going into retirement. Spoonhour is a coach who demands respect and gets the most out of his players, something Bayno and Rollie Massimino could not do after the Tarkanian era.

It was the latter that really brought UNLV into national basketball prominence, but also got them into trouble. Non-sanctioned perks, false study periods, and player indiscretion really brought down the Tark's reign. Long after Tark resigned and the university dealt with the secret contract for Massimino, UNLV president Carol Harter proclaimed that the university would run a clean basketball program. Then came Billy Bayno and Lamar Odom. So much for clean.

Give Bayno his due, though, he was the head coach, not the booster babysitter. Rather than place the blame solely at Bayno's feet the NCAA cited the university as a whole, which included Harter, athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro, and Bayno. With UNLV already on probation, it had to be top priority for all of them to keep the Runnin' Rebels clean and focused on basketball. That did not happen.

The problem is that the NCAA already had its eye on UNLV, so any little thing could get the school in trouble. It becomes a domino effect, they can't chase after the top recruits because the specter of probation lingers over every coaches visit. It's tough to overcome for any program, and more so for a school the NCAA is already watching closely.

It's a three prong course to well being. Do the Runnin' Rebels have enough strength to overcome? Possibly. Funny thing is, UNLV has never been thought of as a football school. In fact, the football program has had just two winning seasons over the past ten years. Last year, they turned a corner, thanks in part to USC transplants John Robinson and Jason Thomas. This is the kind of thing that basketball recruits take note of as well, and is a step in the right direction.

Now we'll just have to wait and see how much run is left in the Rebels.