By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
The sight of all those empty red seats in the arena’s bottom bowl Tuesday might seem jarring for a college basketball program that has a national championship and several Final Four appearances as part of its lore.
But at this point, UNLV’s men’s basketball team has commenced a journey to rekindle relevance, if not some degree of stature, in both Las Vegas’ hot sports market and on college basketball’s national landscape.
It was also the first game for UNLV’s coach, T.J. Otzelberger, who arrived via helicopter in March to succeed Marvin Menzies and served as UNLV Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois’ first big hire.
The Runnin’ Rebs rolled to an 86-71 win over Purdue of Fort Wayne, with five UNLV players reaching double figures in points.
Three-point sharp shooter Jonah Antonio was five for nine from three-point land and finished with 17 points, as did center Cheikh Mbacke Diong, who also grabbed 17 rebounds. Utah transfer Donnie Tillman added 16 points and Amauri Hardy, a holdover from last season’s team, added 15. Elijah Mitrou-Long chipped in with 11 points.
A Thomas & Mack usher estimated there were about 3,500 fans in the arena, even though the reported attendance on the final scorecard was 7,728.
Otzelberger said during his post-game comments that he had gratitude for the fans who did attend and added that locals will fall in love with the current crop of players on the UNLV roster.
LVSportsBiz.com posted a video and photo showing the crowd on Twitter and that elicited these responses.
The media was moved from behind one of goals and the student fan section called The Rebellion took that space.
The Purdue Fort Wayne team had one of its biggest boosters, Toyota car dealership owner Rick Evans, behind its bench.
“Obviously it would be nice to see more fans. But it’s an early season game on a Tuesday night,” Evans said.
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