ManualRam wrote:i think it's a fair assumption that you're a UNLV fan.
That's a fair assumption, yes. Along with 90 percent of my facebook friends,
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what do you think about dave rice as a coach?
Depends. If you're talking all aspects of college coaching together, such as recruiting, team building, and x's and o's/in game coaching, he's good. He's a great recruiter and he manages egos quite well. Whether that's because of Heath Schroyer on the east coast and Justin Hutson on the west coast, as well as being able to point to Stacey Augmon and say "it can be done at UNLV", I don't know, but his recruiting has been great up until now. And it doesn't seem like it's a flash in the pan since Jermaine Lawrence is still out there, Dwayne Morgan is interested for next year, and a slew of other top 30 recruits have UNLV on the radar.
If you're talking about exclusively "coaching", like x's and o's and in game decisions, I'm not impressed by him at all. There is very little offensive scheming going on, and when there is ball movement, his sets make very little sense. They worked on the Amoeba D all off-season this year, and when they have implemented it this season, it's been effective, yet he goes away from it and word is that they will not be going back to it any more. He uses timeouts ineffectively, and his rotations are a bit strange, playing Carlos Lopez instead of Thomas, or even more eggrigiously, Birch, when Lopez is having a terrible game. On these aspects, you can clearly see that he's a new coach and is still learning on the job. Do I have faith that he'll get it? Yeah, because playing small was a smart move against SDSU, but he hasn't shown me enough to have faith that he'll be a great coach. Can he be good? Yes. Will he? Perhaps. But right now, he's great at some aspects, mediocre in the rest and clearly new to being the head coach.
also, what do you think about UNLV's perimeter play?
Major weakness. Anthony Marshall is still learning how to be a pure point, and is so hesistant to attack the basket now that it stagnates the offense badly. Katin has tremendous offensive potential, and is learning each game and has improved since the start of the season, but he's limited in his handles and on the defensive side. If he goes into hero ball, the Rebels get into trouble. Bryce is such an enigma: one game he's literally saving the team with his play, another he's dooming them with his shot selection. He's good in the corner, can pass effectively if he desires, is a good rebounder and at this point appears to be the best perimeter defender on the team since Justin Hawkins defensive is so spotty this season for some reason. And Moser on the perimeter? Bad news. His handles are okay in the open, but he's no point forward. His lateral quickness prevents him from being a lock down perimeter defender. His shooting is spotty and inconsistent, and overall, is way more effective down low.
Overall, this team will go as far as their perimeter play allows, since they lack the ballhandlers that will be needed to go to the Final Four or even deep into the tournament. If Katin continues to learn, Marshall learns to attack when the team needs it and distribute when they don't, Bryce doesn't shoot the team into a hole, Hawkins steps up to what he was last season and has been in a few games this season (Portland), and Moser stops making half-court passes that end up being turnovers, this team can be good. But without those things, they'll make it to the sweet 16 and get knocked out as their frontcourt is good enough to get them that far by themselves.
