Basketball in Vegas: With Tark’s Rebels, It’s a Different Game

The light show swirls through the darkened arena, fireworks explode above the playing floor and the screams of 19,000 fans builds to a crescendo as the home team is introduced.

Opposing players watch in bewilderment, as if witnessing a spectacle in a Strip showroom. Some clap or join hands with teammates, trying to remain unaffected.

This is basketball Las Vegas style.

And the biggest show in town is at the Nevada Las Vegas campus arena where the nation’s No. 1 college basketball team, the Runnin’ Rebels, strut their stuff.

Crowds include the cream of Las Vegas society--sitting courtside in an area dubbed “Gucci Row”--to taxi drivers in the upper balcony. Stars like Wayne Newton are more than happy to sing the national anthem. And wealthy patrons are more than happy to fork over $2,600 for a pair of knockout season tickets.

“This is the first year we’ve done the fireworks,” Coach Jerry Tarkanian said. “I think it really gets the fans fired up, but I don’t think it intimidates the other team’s players.”

“It’s kind of a unique tradition we have here,” athletic director Brad Rothermel said. “We could sell a lot more of the Gucci seats if we had them available.”

Since they don’t, other wealthy fans--some of whom not only buy season tickets but contribute toward scholarships -- are spread out over the lower levels of the 4-year-old Thomas and Mack Center, which Tarkanian’s successful troops built.

Some 2,700 tickets are set aside for students. The lucky ones sit behind a backboard at the end of the court. The rest sit upstairs in balcony seats perched far above the playing floor.

“Students are never out of a ticket,” Rothermel said. “They may not get to sit in the student section, but they always have a seat if they want one.”

Tarkanian, the nation’s winningest major college basketball coach (666-127 in 25 years), earns $155,393 a year, plus perks, at UNLV. Few in this city will argue that he’s not worth it.

This season’s squad has been No. 1 for the past five weeks--drawing attention to an area that depends on tourism for its economic survival and joining together a community of diverse backgrounds.

The basketball program funds many of the UNLV athletic department’s other sports, subsidizing a football program that, unlike basketball, draws a yawn from Las Vegas sports fans and loses more than $1 million a year.

Basketball is expected to add more than $3 million to the department’s athletic coffers this year, about 60 percent of its total operating budget. The program costs the school about $1 million.

“There are maybe only a half dozen programs in the country that would generate similar revenues,” Rothermel said. “We rank up there with the North Carolinas, the Kentuckys, maybe Syracuse. We have a major facility like they do.”

Despite its success, UNLV basketball carries an outlaw image--one nurtured by Tarkanian’s battles with the NCAA and the city’s own reputation as a place where almost anything goes.

Tarkanian is proud of taking on the NCAA for trying to suspend him for alleged recruiting violations in the late 1970s. Following a two-week trial in 1984, a state judge ruled in favor of Tarkanian and compared the NCAA’s tactics with “those of the Ayatollah.”

Tarkanian, though, does ruffle purists by recruiting many junior college players. He often goes after players who have gotten into trouble or need constant tutoring to maintain even marginal grades.

A player convicted of possessing stolen credit cards after a purse snatching was added to the team last month after his conviction was overturned. Tarkanian’s assistants are baby sitting a New York prep whiz at a California junior college--a player who went to five different high schools and never got a diploma. Another recruit is in a California youth detention center.

But the once dismal graduation rate of his players is something that is changing. Of the 67 lettermen who used all their eligibility in his 13 years at UNLV, only 17 have gotten diplomas. However, all five seniors on this year’s team are expected to get their degrees by the end of the year.

This year’s team may be the best since the 1975-76 “Hardway Eight” team that averaged 110 points a game, or the following year’s squad that went to the Final Four, where it lost to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte in the semifinals.

“This is the best running team we’ve had in a real long time,” Tarkanian admits, grudgingly.

The Rebels are so deep that three players alternate at center, averaging 17.2 points and 12.1 rebounds a game. Three other players--Armon Gilliam, Gerald Paddio and Freddie Banks--average in the double figures. Gilliam leads with 24.1 points per game. Point guard Mark Wade dishes off assists at a 12.3 per game average.

Even in close games, at least nine Rebels enjoy quality playing time, as Tarkanian shuffles players in and out to keep up a pressing man-to-man full court defense that will usually either rattle or eventually wear down an opponent.

When the Rebels get a turnover or bring the ball in, they push it straight up the floor and waste little time shooting it. UNLV was 93 for 212 on three-point attempts in its first 12 games; Paddio was an amazing 40 for 72 from behind the line.

After an early-season string of close, come-from-behind wins, which culminated in the National Invitation Tournament title, the Rebels have rolled over opponents. They beat Navy, ranked No. 9 at the time, by 25 points and thrashed the UC Irvine, 114-72, last weekend.

“We didn’t want any more TV timeouts,” Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan said after the game. “We just wanted to get out of there. He (Tarkanian) was real nice to us. He could have beaten us by 100.”

All this has the town, and the players, talking about a possible national championship.

“You’d have to be stupid not to,” Wade said. “We’re trying to keep everything in perspective. We know we can get knocked off in the PCAA, and we have tough games at Oklahoma and Auburn.

“But I can see the makings of a team that can win the national championship. We’re playing every facet of the game.”