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Wednesday, March 19, 2025 | 2 a.m.
For UNLV’s next head basketball coach, the on-court priorities are obvious. Winning games is paramount, so the X’s and O’s are known prerequisites for success.
What is less tangible in building a good program is the off-court stuff — the things that might not directly affect the scoreboard on game nights but still contribute to winning just the same. Those are the elements that will likely determine whether UNLV’s new hire turns out to be a keeper or another discarded name in the churn that has seen the program burn through four head coaches in the last 11 years.
So what will the next coach have on his plate? Some key foundational factors that will determine the long-term fate of the program:
NIL rules all
Nothing is more important in building a good team these days than having the payroll to finance it. All players expect to be paid, good players expect a bag and players who move the needle want to be set for life.
UNLV is doing what it can to keep up. The team spent more than $1 million on its 2023-24 roster and nearly the same amount this season, with star point guard D.J. Thomas and senior forward Jalen Hill both earning six-figure payouts. Any candidate for the job is going to want assurances about the NIL budget going forward before taking the job.
The good news is that the program appears to be in good position as far as fundraising goes. Bill Paulos, the chairman of UNLV’s NIL collective, says there is money to spend, and the team’s participation in the 2025 Players Era Festival tournament will add another $1 million to the coffers. The event, played at MGM Grand Garden Arena, was created to give the participating schools at least $1 million to their NIL pool.
That’s a nice head start, but Paulos says the new head coach can’t just expect to be handed a check — he’s got to be willing to get involved on the ground, gladhand some high rollers and loosen some wallets.
“If I’m a coach in today’s world, I’m telling the AD how I’m going to help in the fundraising,” Paulos says. “You can’t just come in and say, ‘How much you got?’ You’ve got to come in and say, ‘Can I help you get more?’ That’s a part of the head coach’s job now.”
Paulos says new UNLV football coach Dan Mullen has provided to blueprint for how to be personable and engaging while convincing people to contribute.
“Coach Mullen has been absolutely sensational in going out and talking to boosters, talking to folks and telling them what his plan is. That’s very important for people to jump on board and get excited. If you’re the coach, you’ve got to help create the excitement.”
The next basketball coach has to understand NIL is a two-way street and embrace the new way of building a winner.
Recruiting results
Kevin Kruger had the right idea when it came to recruiting, as he mixed blue-chip prep prospects with a steady stream of solid-to-good veterans from the transfer portal. And he did well in the Las Vegas area, keeping D.J. Thomas home and forming strong relationships with local coaches. It was rare to attend a big high-school game without at least one UNLV coach in attendance.
The next head coach, whoever it is, will have to be cognizant that UNLV isn’t necessarily the strongest draw for hometown kids, so putting up a fence around the valley is an ongoing operation.
Mojave coach KeJuan Clark has had some Division-I recruits come up through his program, including Class of 2025 guard CJ Shaw, who was recruited by UNLV but ultimately chose UC Santa Barbara. Clark says the incoming UNLV staff will have its work cut out for it on the local recruiting scene.
“Kids are paying attention, and (UNLV has) been firing their coach every four or five years,” Clark says. “So it’s like, ‘If I go here, I don’t know what your job security is. Should I really come here?’ That’s something the coach is going to have to answer and overcome.”
As for how the new coach will be able to rebuild those relationships, Clark has very simple advice.
“Kruger did a great job recruiting the local area while he was at UNLV,” Clark says. “The biggest thing is just show up. Show up early. Don’t show up when they already have offers. Take a chance and show you’re interested in a kid and let him develop. Show up, do your due diligence and those kids with potential will grow into college athletes.”
Reconnecting with the past
Unlike most mid-major programs, UNLV has a glorious past filled with multiple Final Four banners and an NCAA Tournament championship trophy. Sure, the weight of those long-ago accomplishments can feel like a burden to live up to, but really they should be embraced — celebrated, even.
Previous coaches like Marvin Menzies and T.J. Otzelberger discounted the past and didn’t make much of an effort to welcome former players back into the program. Kruger did, and it resulted in Freddie Banks having his number retired in 2021 and Anderson Hunt’s jersey being raised to the rafters in 2023. In 2022, Wink Adams attended a practice and gave a speech to the team.
The next coach should continue to tout UNLV’s storied history — including the Lon Kruger years.
Former point guard Anthony Marshall, a Las Vegas native, was recruited by Lon Kruger and went to the NCAA Tournament all four years at UNLV (2009-13), including twice under Dave Rice. After playing professionally overseas for several years, he has returned home and is currently working for the city at the Doolittle Community Center while keeping close tabs on his beloved alma mater.
Marshall believes players from his era and beyond can serve as a reference point for how to win at UNLV, even if he understands it can’t be the coach’s top priority.
“I think it’s very important for us to get our alumni back around the program,” Marshall says. “With so much turnover since 2013, it’s been hard to build that culture and tradition for the new coaches coming in. You think about it, the new coach is trying to find his way, trying to build an identity for the team; it’s hard for them to reach out to alumni and get everybody to buy in because they’re focused on figuring out the team and getting everything up and running. But it’s important to a lot of us.”
Marshall would be interested in a graduate assistant position or some other official role with the new administration, but if that’s not in the cards he would still like to make himself available any way he can — and he knows other alums who would be just as willing to help.
“We know the ins and outs and we’ve been able to have success,” he says. “Whether it’s just mentorship and talking to young players, there are things they might not know, like how to navigate the Mountain West. When you go to Wyoming it’s a hard place to play; they might not have thousands of fans in the crowd, but they’re going to play hard because it’s UNLV. That’s something we can speak about. Look at UCLA — they have guys go back during the summertime to meet with recruits, playing pickup, consulting with the team. We’re just trying to reestablish those winning ways at UNLV.”
Homecourt hardship
On Jan. 21, UNLV took the court at the Thomas & Mack Center coming off two massive back-to-back wins over Utah State and San Diego State. But instead of receiving a hero’s welcome, players were greeted by just 4,685 fans. The building was dead, completely devoid of energy — and UNLV played like it, coming out flat and getting upset by lowly Wyoming, 63-61.
The defeat stopped all of UNLV’s momentum and probably sealed Kruger’s fate. And it could have been avoided if there had been a boisterous crowd creating a homecourt advantage.
“It’s very different from when I was playing,” Marshall says. “Almost every game was sold out. But we were almost like a pro team, in a sense, so we were the hottest ticket in Vegas. Now we’ve got hockey, the Aces, the Raiders, the A’s coming in. If you’re not winning, people are going to spend their money elsewhere.
The new coach must realize that it’s in his best interest to boost fan interest by any means necessary.
It won’t be easy, as dwindling crowd sizes have become a serious problem. UNLV drew an average of 4,969 fans per game this season, down from 5,859 last year and even a decrease from the 5,224 per game they drew in 2021-22, the first year the arena was open following the pandemic.
Obviously, any turnaround starts with winning. The new coach only has to look to UNLV football for a handy how-to manual.
In 2022, which was the final year of Marcus Arroyo’s disastrous tenure, the football team averaged 22,112 fans for its home games at Allegiant Stadium. Barry Odom was brought in for the 2023 campaign, and though the numbers didn’t go through the roof his first year (despite a magical run to the Mountain West title game), 2024 saw a significant jump. UNLV drew more than 30,000 for each of its last four home games in 2024, with two of them cramming more than 40,000 into the stands.
So whenever UNLV basketball turns into a winner, expect a one-year lag before attendance responds. But Marshall is confident the fans will come back.
“Once we get back to our winning ways the Mack will be rocking again,” Marshall says. “That’s big, because that crowd is almost like a sixth man. It gives you that extra boost when the crowd gets behind you. We need that. Winning solves everything.”
Scheduling up
One area where Kruger faltered was in scheduling. His approach usually featured a cupcake-laden non-conference slate with two or three contests against power-conference opponents that may or may not have ended up as Quad 1 or Quad 2 teams.
That strategy forced UNLV to really thread the needle for the first half of the season and then dominate the Mountain West in order to contend for a tournament spot. And when that failed, the team was relegated to having to win the MWC tournament in order to secure a bid to the big dance.
In Kruger’s four years, UNLV’s strength of schedule ranked 94th, 91st, 81st and then 84th this season. For comparison, during that same span San Diego’s State’s SOS was 62nd, 31st, 27th and 74th.
The next coach should probably give the team a little more margin for error by scheduling more quality opponents; it might result in taking some losses in non-conference play, but it would also give the program more opportunities to land significant wins, and that’s how you build an NCAA at-large résumé (and it could even draw some fans, too).
Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.
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