MBB Game 12 @ UNLV, Dec 21 (Thu), 10 PM EST

[Jojogunne]

Our men travel to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, next week to take on the Runnin' Rebels, which for many years was one of the top programs in the West under Coach Jerry Tarkinian, who won a national championship there in 1990.

Rollie Massimino followed Tarkanian, but lasted only two years, which was fortunate for us. His top assistants, Jay Wright and Tom Pecora, landed at Hofstra in 1994, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ten days ago, on Dec. 6, an active shooter killed three members of the UNLV community. UNLV was scheduled to play at Dayton that night, but the game was cancelled. Since then, UNLV, now 4-5, lost to Loyola Marymount, upset No. 8 Creighton, and dropped a close one to Saint Mary's.

UNLV has a balanced attack, with five players scoring 10 ppg or more. This should be a challenging game for us.

The UNLV schedule has a video link to the Mountain West Network. The link appears to work, so we may be able to watch online for free. If not, tune into WRHU (88.7 FM).

https://themw.com/watch/?sport=13&school=65

[HofstraMathew]

I am going to be out there for this game. Hopefully we build on the second half from Saturday and play a full 40 minutes.

[Captain]

I watched Creighton beat Alabama on Saturday. Creighton looked great! If UNLV beat Creighton, they can play.
BTW Estrada did not do much in this game. With us, he had the ball in his hands way more. Playing off ball he seems less potent.

[ZMAN3]

I watched Creighton beat Alabama on Saturday. Creighton looked great! If UNLV beat Creighton, they can play.
BTW Estrada did not do much in this game. With us, he had the ball in his hands way more. Playing off ball he seems less potent.

As I pointed out on "Estrada @ Alabama" Dec 12

[Captain]

Thanks Zman3
I just read your stuff. Great minds think alike I guess.

[HU87]

I watched UNLV/Creighton and the Alabama/Creighton game-- agree on all those previously made points.

UNLV is a good team with a lot of length and athleticism... should be a tough game.

It was really interesting to see Estrada not as the primary option. He is definitely playing more of the Tyler Thomas/Norm Richardson/Antoine Agudio best supporting actor role for this Alabama team.

[Wags]

Our men travel to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, next week to take on the Runnin' Rebels, which for many years was one of the top programs in the West under Coach Jerry Tarkinian, who won a national championship there in 1990.

Rollie Massimino followed Tarkanian, but lasted only two years, which was fortunate for us. His top assistants, Jay Wright and Tom Pecora, landed at Hofstra in 1994, and the rest, as they say, is history.

This game will actually be the first meeting between Hofstra and UNLV since 12/30/92, when Wright and Pecora were coaching for UNLV as assistants in that game.

[triplec2195]

ESPN is only giving us a 32% chance of winning this game those odds ARE far better then the Duke odds lol. A tough game in the making.

[Jojogunne]

UNLV had the conference freshman of the week:

https://unlvrebels.com/news/2023/12/18/ ... -week.aspx

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2023/12/19/m ... rsday.aspx is titled "Pride Travels To UNLV On Thursday."

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/side ... game12.pdf is our Game Notes.

UNLV has not written a preview.

https://unlvrebels.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary will have statistics. Unfortunately UNLV does not use StatBroadcast.

After this game, we will play four consecutive games on different channels, and I wonder if we have done that before. We will play St. John's on Fox Sports 1, host Charleston on MSG2, host Delaware on MSG, and go to Northeastern on CBS Sports Network.

The Mountain West has four teams in ESPN's bracket (which has us as a 14 seed). With Pac-12 teams leaving except for Oregon State and Washington State, the Pacific-12 will realistically cease to exist even though that has not been declared yet, and the Mountain West will be the top conference in the west.

[Jojogunne]

I would doubt that we ever played four games in a row on TV.

[triplec2195]

UNLV 4.5 point favorites in this game and if we play like we did in the second half of the Norfolk State game we will be competitive. Need to keep it close.

[Wags]

This game is being played on World Basketball Day, 132 years after Dr. Naismith's first basketball game was played on Dec. 21, 1891.

[EvanJ]

I would doubt that we ever played four games in a row on TV.

In 2007, we were on MSG on February 3, SNY on February 8, ESPN on February 10 (against George Mason who we beat twice when they went to the Final Four the previous season, and I am guessing it is the only time we played a conference game other than a Final on ESPN), and SNY on February 13. We played on four channels in six games including on ESPNU on February 22. Because of the time that the CAA did not have a TV contract and we were never on regional sports networks, it is easy to not remember how often we used to be on TV. 10 of the 18 CAA games in 2006-2007 were televised. In January 2008 we played six consecutive games on MSG, ESPNU, SNY, ESPNU, SNY, and YES. Our schedule at https://gohofstra.com/sports/mens-baske ... le/2007-08 and equivalent pages for earlier seasons says what games were televised in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, but not 2008-2009, and I did not check seasons after that.

https://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/202 ... -unlv.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Hofstra at UNLV." The 74-58 win over Norfolk State was not a unicorn score, but it was our second 74-58 and first since Jerry was in fourth grade and before I was born. From previous posts, I thought Jerry graduated Hofstra ten years before me, but he was in fourth grade twelve years before me. We won 74-58 hosting Drexel on February 12, 1983. Our 23 assists on 26 field goals against Norfolk State was our highest percent of field goals with assists in a game with at least 20 assists going back to 2002-2003, and the fifth highest assist percentage in a game between two Division I teams this season. Carlos had 10 assists and 1 turnover. He became the first Hofstra player from 2010-2011 to now to have two games with at least 10 assists and 0 or 1 turnover. Stevie Mejia had 10 assists and 1 turnover in a 70-59 win hosting Old Dominion on February 24, 2013 (which was impressive considering we scored 58.5 points that season), Desure Buie had 10 assists and 1 turnover in a 99-95 win at Charleston on February 14, 2019, and Carlos had 10 assists and 1 turnover in a 79-58 win hosting Stony Brook on February 4, 2023.

We played UNLV in five sports and are 0-7 against them.

We are 2-3 since joining the CAA in games that started at 10:00 P.M. or later. After losing at Gonzaga on November 22, 2002, we did not play that late until losing at Oregon State on November 16, 2011, and then not until a win at UCLA on November 21, 2019. That started a three game west coast trip that also included a win at Cal State Fullerton and a late night loss at San Diego. We won at San Jose State on November 17, 2022, which was followed by a Saturday afternoon loss at Saint Mary's. This will be the first time since the Oregon State game that we traveled to the west coast for one game.

KenPom expects us to lose 73-70.

https://unlvrebels.com/news/2023/12/20/ ... fstra.aspx is titled "Runnin' Rebels Back Home Thursday To Host Hofstra." They wrote more about us than some teams do. They said Thomas was on the Preseason First Team, but did not say that he was POY. They said 8 of the 15 players on our roster are underclassmen. However, underclassmen are 5 of the 11 players we used, and they combined for no starts, 20 percent of our minutes, and 14 percent of our points. I would expect underclassmen to average fewer points and minutes than their teammates (with an exception for guys who can get drafted after one season and would never consider the CAA), but I still expect the nationwide percentage of minutes and points by underclassmen to be much higher than ours. UNLV's Dedan Thomas Jr. is 18th with 6.0 assists per game, and Kalib Boone is 17th with a .653 field goal percentage. Jalen Hill averages 11.5 points, missed the last three games due to injury, and does not say if he will play.

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/side ... a_2023.pdf is UNLV's Game Notes. They get outrebounded by 6.1 per game according to their statistics, but ESPN says -6.5 per game, which is 21st worst of 362 teams. ESPN is wrong because they played 9 games, and a whole number divided by 9 rounded to the nearest tenth cannot end in .5.

Carlos fell to sixth in assists per game when another player got 14. He needs 8 assists to get into a tie for fifth. Thomas leads in threes made per game, and needs to make 4 threes to stay above Cliff Davis. William & Mary's Gabe Dorsey also plays tonight, and enters with 2 fewer threes made in 11 games each. Since they play first, I will know before we start how many threes Carlos needs to stay above Dorsey. They are also on the west coast at Pepperdine west of Los Angeles, but their game is at 7:00 P.M. Eastern/4:00 P.M. local. Eight CAA teams play today.

[Jojogunne]

Game is on now:

https://themw.com/news/2023/10/19/hofstra-at-unlv/

[Cards]

Terrible start - poor rebounding (8 to 1), turnovers, and poor shooting! 10-3 after 5minutes.

[cactus]

this plays like a free feed, keeps freezing

[Cards]

this plays like a free feed, keeps freezing

seems to be fine for me cactus

[Cards]

9 minutes in and HU has 5 pts. UGGHHHHH

[dutchPride86]

This offense can be a really tough watch when the 3s aren't falling