UNLV Basketball, Las Vegas Lights Teams Go Through Coaches, Troubled Times In Competitive Sports Market
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The folks who market and promote the UNLV men’s basketball team and the Las Vegas Lghts FC soccer team use a sales pitch that their sports product is an affordable option in a market with two major league teams that have pricy tickets.
But these are unsettled times for UNLV hoops and Lights soccer because the two sports organizations with vastly different identities and pasts are linked by the fact that there has been a revolving door of coaches and a pile of losses.
The college basketball players at the UNLV and the professional soccer players at the Lights have come and gone so frequently in the past few years that it’s been difficult for casual fans to make an emotional connection to the product — something that is needed to grow the sports product in a very competitive Las Vegas entertainment market.
UNLV today released a statement saying coach T.J. Otzelberger has left Thomas & Mack Center for the head coach’s job at Iowa State, a “Power Five” conference school where Otzelberger served as an assistant coach.
UNLV basketball has its longtime fans, older Las Vegas residents, who remember the good ol’ days when UNLV wiped out Duke by 30 points to win a national championship in April 1990. From 2004-16, the Runnin’ Rebels had two coaches — Lon Kruger and Dave Rice. The team made the NCAA national basketball tournament under both and were competitive.
But then Rice was fired and the wheels came off the basketball program. Todd Simon served as an interim coach in 2016, Marvin Menzies was coach from 2016-19 and then Otzelberger arrived via helicopter at Thomas & Mack Center in March 2019.
During Otzelberger’s two years as coach, UNLV lost one more game than it won (28-29) but apparently that won-loss record was good enough for the Iowa State Cyclones to hire him after the Cyclones lost 22 of 24 games during this pandemic season, including 0-18 in Big 12 conference play.
Attendance has dropped at UNLV games, with the crowd mostly an an older fan base. Before the pandemic grounded attendance for UNLV home games, not too many students even attended basketball games at the campus arena.
UNLV was once a national basketball powerhouse, but the team has not made the March Madness national tournament since 2013.
From a brand standpoint, they’ve become the Blockbuster videos of college basketball, a well-known brand that once dominated nationally back in the day but are now mostly irrelevant to followers across the country. It’s been a sad descent because Las Vegas residents who lived here during the national championship days recalled the communitywide fan vibe was like the Vegas Golden Knights exuberance in 2018 when the miracle Knights made it to the National Hockey League Finals.
Meanwhile, the excitement that accompanied the launch of the downtown Las Vegas Lights team in 2018 has withered under the strain of a worldwide novel coronavirus pandemic. Even Zappos, the downtown Las Vegas online shoe and apparel retailer, has quit as the Lights’ main sponsor and club founder/owner Brett Lashbrook has changed the team from an independent team in United Soccer League to a minor league affiliate of Los Angeles FC of Major League Soccer. The Lights are still in the USL, but will practice in LA and play their games at downtown Las Vegas’ Cashman Field.
Lashbrook has gone through five coaches in four years. It all began with the hiring of a colorful manager by the name of Luis Sanchez Sola, or “El Chelis,” who smoked like Wally Backman, spoke like Casey Stengel and offered facial expressions like Jon Gruden. El Chelis quit before he completed his first season and was replaced by his son, Isidro Sánchez in September 2018.
Lashbrook made a splash by hiring former U.S. soccer star Eric Wynalda in October 2018 as coach before he was fired in June 2020. Frank Yallop was enlisted from June 2020 to January before Lashbrook hired current coach, Steve Cherundolo.
No matter who coached the team, the Lights were mediocre on the pitch, failing to qualify for the USL playoffs every season since their inception. Lashbrook acknowledged the team’s performance was bad, which is why he believes the Lights will be more competitive as an Los Angeles FC affiliate than an independent team. He looked at the USL team in Reno as an example of an MLS affiliate playing well on the field and winning games.
While the losses piled up for the Lights, at least fans did come out to Cashman Field to watch the team. The Lights had one of the better attendance records in the USL, though many tickets that were distributed were freebies.
While the Lights were at the bottom of the USL standings, Lashbrook created an affordable entertainment niche — especially for Las Vegas’ Hispanic sports fans — with attention-grabbing promotions like dropping cash from a helicopter, which did not please federal aviation officials.
UNLV Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois is recruiting a men’s basketball coach — again. Old-time UNLV basketball fans will once again offer suggestions on social media to fill the position left open by Otzelberger, who coached eight years on the staff of Iowa State’s basketball team in Ames, Iowa.
Meanwhile, Lashbrook’s team will start later this year at Cashman, where vaccinations are administered on a daily basis these days. He hopes the LAFC affiliation will be a shot in the arm to improve the club’s status in the USL standings.
