by Jake Runyon (@jakerunyon)
Have you ever had one of those naps where you fall asleep when it is light out, and then when you wake up its dark.
You wake up thinking you’ve slept for 10 years, or that you woke up on another planet.
Thats what the UNLV Scarlet and Grey Showcase felt like for me. At the end of last season, I drifted into a UNLV basketball hibernation.
Walking up those steps into the TMC, it finally hit me that college basketball season was upon us.
I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to make any sort of predictions about UNLV until conference season. There is just way too much turnaround on the Rebels roster this year. Here are a couple of my observations from last nights “First Look”.
– I liked all the music that the players chose for their introduction, but part of me was hoping that Dantley Walker would come down the red carpet to “This is how we roll” by Florida Georgia Line
– UNLV may be picked to finish 4th overall in the conference for basketball, but I think we are preseason MWC favorite for dancing.
– On that note, you have to respect Dantley Walker, Charles Rushman, and Cody Doolin on playing it safe, and not dancing. There is only one white college basketball player that can dance, and he is at Mercer
– Dwayne Morgan is looooonnnnnggggg. (see what I did there.. I made the “long” longer. Symbolism.)
– I know alumni games are pretty much required to happen, but is there anything that can be done to liven things up? What if they lowered the rims to 8 feet, and we let the big fellas dunk?
– I’m not a fan of Christian Wood’s hair. He looks like one of those troll dolls that were big in the 90s.
-While watching the intra-squad scrimmage, I found myself trying to guess which player on UNLV would win in a tournament of FIFA on Xbox. I’m thinking Ben Carter would be the favorite, but Daquan Cook is the dark horse.
– Do you think that Kendall Smith and Christian Wood secretly refer to eachother as Russ and KD? (If you don’t get what this is referring to, here is a photo of these two looking overwhelmingly happy to be standing next to their idols.)
-Cody Doolin could be the Troy Bolton that the Rebels need.
We’ll know a lot more about this team when the season actually gets started. One thing that looked promising in the intra-squad scrimmage was that every once and a while, it looked like an offensive play was being run. It was incredible.
The Runnin Rebels open up their season with consecutive home games November 14 (Morehead State), and November 16 (Sam Houston State) before heading out to Brooklyn to play in the Coaches vs Cancer Classic.