UNLV Basketball Head Coach Kevin Kruger responds to a question during an interview in Mendenhall Center on UNLV campus Tuesday, June 15, 2021.
Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021 | 2 a.m.
With fall semester classes beginning on Monday, UNLV basketball players are trickling back onto campus this week and head coach Kevin Kruger is excited to get back to work.
Players got some time off to return home after the summer practice period ended, and beginning next week they’ll reintegrate into UNLV’s offseason regimen. After a month that will mostly be dedicated to cardio and strength training, practice will begin in full on Sept. 29.
Before the players dispersed, Kruger got a chance to assess his roster on the court. The first-year coach conducted a major overhaul this offseason by bringing in nine transfers, most of whom have limited game experience at the Division I level.
After the eight-week summer workout period, Kruger is convinced he’s got a good crew.
“We learned a lot about the guys, in a great way,” Kruger said. “We learned how much they’ll compete and how much they love to be in the gym and play. It’s going to be an incredibly fun and competitive non-conference [schedule]. I think we’re going to be able to do a lot of different things schematically with the lineups, and the chemistry is great right now. I think, as a coaching staff, we’re really, really encouraged.”
The most important thing Kruger learned during summer was that despite the overnight roster rebuild, UNLV may have enough talent and skill diversity to play the way Kruger wants to play — starting now.
Previous coach T.J. Otzelberger had two years to build the roster and couldn’t construct it in a way that allowed him to play his preferred style. He found himself having to tailor his gameplans to suit the skills of his players, not the other way around. That approach resulted in obvious on-court dissonance and a 29-31 record over two seasons.
After getting his first chance to work with his assembled players for an extended period, Kruger doesn’t anticipate having the same sort of issues this year.
“We sat in staff meetings and actually started to bring up ideas we maybe wouldn’t have thought were possible at the beginning of the summer,” Kruger said. “Do we want to be more hectic? More disruptive? Do we want to sub quicker and stay fresher? After seeing these eight weeks, we have that ball of clay we can mold and hopefully do a lot of different things with.”
Schedule update
The Mountain West released its 18-game schedule last week, and it shouldn’t be much longer before UNLV announces its non-conference schedule.
As of now, we already know a good portion of the opponents. UNLV will take on Michigan in the MGM Main Event on Nov. 19, then face Arizona or Wichita State in the second round. We know they’ll host UCLA, Cal and Omaha, and they’ll travel to SMU and San Francisco.
That leaves room for a handful of games yet to be revealed; Kruger said the schedule is pretty much complete and the school is just waiting on procedural stuff before announcing it officially.
Once the ink is dry on the contracts, Kruger thinks fans will be happy with the slate.
“It’s a very competitive non-conference schedule,” Kruger said. “It’s a national schedule, of course. That’s something UNLV has always been able to do. I think the kids are excited. This is a group that will enjoy the challenge.”
AD shuffle
Desiree Reed-Francois believed in Kruger enough to elevate him to head coach, so of course Kruger was appreciative of their time together at UNLV.
With Reed-Francois off to Missouri, Kruger had nothing but nice things to say about his former athletic director.
“Working with Desiree was great,” Kruger said. “I’ll always be grateful and thankful for the opportunity of a lifetime for me. To be the head coach at my alma mater, in the place I call home, that wouldn’t have happened without her. I wish her the best at Missouri and I’ll be rooting for her from afar.”
UNLV has named Erick Harper interim athletic director while the school conducts a national search for a permanent replacement.
Kruger doesn’t anticipate the AD shuffle will have much of an impact on the day-to-day operation of the basketball program.
“With Erick, there is a relationship there from the previous years. It should be business as usual on the basketball side. We’ll treat each other with the same level of respect we would have with Desiree and focus on the process of moving forward. The most important thing is, I know he supports UNLV.”
Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.
