It’s been five days since fourth-year UNLV men’s basketball coach Kevin Kruger was fired, and a candidate has yet to emerge as the favorite to be his replacement.
The Rebels haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2013, and athletic director Erick Harper made it clear in his announcement of Kruger’s ouster that the university simply expects more success than the sixth-place Mountain West finish it saw this year.
This means the task ahead for the next hire is a large one: bring Las Vegas college basketball back to the prominence that once warranted the “Runnin’ Rebels” brand — and quickly.
How can UNLV ensure it picks the right person to accomplish that feat?
Here are three things the program should prioritize in its search:
1. Raise the pay
UNLV enjoyed a bit of a financial break in Kruger’s four years, paying him $775,000 this season on a contract that had him scheduled to make $800,000 in each of the next two years.
That salary ranked seventh among his Mountain West counterparts, based on media reports of their contracts. Five coaches make more than $1 million a year, led by San Diego State’s Brian Dutcher at $2.3 million.
Just across the state, UNR’s Steve Alford makes more than $1.2 million, and UNLV can likely expect to pay more than that to land its new leader.
Firing Kruger sends the message that the program is confident in its cash flow, given that the school will shell out a $2.3 million buyout for terminating him with two years left on his deal.
This comes despite a recent miscommunication that saw Harper tell the Board of Regents the school could only afford to pay the first two years of new football coach Dan Mullen’s five-year, $17.5 million contract.
As the university clarified, the money to pay coaches comes from “multiple funding sources,” including ticket sales, multimedia rights, philanthropy and “direct and indirect institutional support.”
Conference revenue distributions were also cited as a potential contributor to the athletic salaries, and the Mountain West is involved in an ongoing legal battle for a $55 million payout from the Pac-12.
2. Make a splash
Picking a coach with a profile that will make headlines and raise excitement would do wonders for a program that desperately needs to sell tickets to fill the Thomas & Mack Center.
Las Vegas loves a big name and a winner. Former football coach Barry Odom was a benefactor of that when he came to the city from the SEC. He had nearly immediate fan support, which he reinforced by winning in his first season. Then last season, the program set an attendance record of 42,228 fans at Allegiant Stadium in a loss to Boise State.
His successor, another SEC alum in Mullen, is poised for similar success.
But the basketball program is far removed from its record for attendance, which was 20,321 for a 1986 matchup with Navy. Since being renovated, the Thomas & Mack Center can fit fewer fans, maxing out at 18,776, but sellouts have not been an issue.
Over the past three seasons, UNLV ranks sixth in Mountain West men’s basketball attendance with an average of 5,547 fans, according to a February report from Nevada SportsNet. San Diego State leads at 12,343, followed by New Mexico at 12,319. UNR is just above UNLV at 7,862.
More fans could mean more winning. Opposing coaches, Dutcher for example, have mentioned the lack of a home-court advantage for UNLV.
3. Look for experience
Kruger was a first-time head coach, and even in his final season, there were issues that illustrated his lack of experience.
Game management, roster building and injury prevention stand out as understandable hurdles for a first-time coach, and UNLV can’t afford to falter similarly this time.
The next coach will need the best available staff in strength and conditioning, and maybe some strong analysts could move the needle.
UNLV ended its season without its leading scorer, Dedan Thomas Jr., which was the fourth significant injury of the year. In the team’s final practice before the conference tournament, guard Brooklyn Hicks noted that the extra stretching the Rebels participated in “probably should’ve started” earlier in the season.
Kruger later said the team had been stretching all season out of the view of the media, and he led a team that consistently gave full effort. But it was another instance of what UNLV can hope to avoid in its next hire.
The best teams are united in their messaging, and that is most easily accomplished by a veteran coach with a strong voice.
Contact Callie Fin at [email protected]. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.
