Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 3, 1991 TAG: 9102030072
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAKE CURTIS THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
While seeing the Aggies' turnovers mount, a viewer is obliged to wonder whether the Rebels' defense could have handled Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1968, or rattled Indiana's no-mistakes team of 1976, the last college team to go through a season unbeaten.
UNLV is the best college team since Indiana's 1976 squad, according to former DePaul coach Ray Meyer, and he rates the Rebels higher than the 1982 North Carolina team of James Worthy, Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins, which ESPN analyst Jim Valvano calls the best team ever.
Fellow Big West coach Gary Colson of Fresno State says UNLV is better than that '76 Indiana squad, which featured four first-round draft choices coached by Bobby Knight.
And John Wooden is not at all offended to have this UNLV team compared with his great UCLA teams, although he says his teams with Abdul-Jabbar and Walton would "have no fear" of the current UNLV team.
Pete Newell, who coached Cal to an NCAA championship in 1959 and the United States to an Olympic gold medal in 1960, puts UNLV (17-0 before Saturday) among the all-time great teams and says the Rebels clearly have a chance to become the first team in 15 years to finish undefeated.
The Rebels have ball-handlers, scorers and quickness at every position, and no loose cannons to create problems.
Only a confrontation against Arkansas at Fayetteville, Ark., on Feb. 10, a game at New Mexico State on Feb. 25, and the uncertainties of the NCAA Tournament remain as impediments to the Rebels' becoming just the eighth team to finish as an unbeaten NCAA champ.
The Rebels' closest game this season was 12 points against Louisville, and that game was not really that close.
Coach Jerry Tarkanian says his team is playing better at this stage of the season than it did last season, when it won the NCAA title. And despite having no challenging competition, the Rebels are sharp every night.
Overcoming the myriad of problems of last season has "bonded" this team, says UC-Santa Barbara coach Jerry Pimm, and Colson says Tarkanian fosters the "us-against-them" mentality, even though UNLV brought many of the problems on itself.
Witnessing a UNLV practice provides hard evidence for their night-in, night-out success. "I like watching their practices as much as their games," Newell said.
It's several hours of non-stop grind, mostly defense, with every player pushed to the limit without complaint. It is pure Rebels basketball, without the messiness of an overmatched opponent.
"Right now, they're playing hard," Meyer said, "but they don't seem to be playing on emotion, just skill. If you play on emotion, you can be up and down."
Colson added: "And I think they have a little room left under the accelerator. Right now, they're just on cruise control."
The Rebels are becoming an "era" - like the Walton era, the Russell era, the Alcindor era.
There is, of course, a faction that is holding off bestowing such a tag on UNLV, and this skeptical group surprisingly includes the master of jump-the-gun hyperbole, Dick Vitale.
However, accomplishing the expected undoubtedly would put the Rebels in the company of the six greatest college teams - San Francisco '56 (Russell, K.C. Jones), Ohio State '60 (Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried), UCLA '68 (Alcindor, Lucius Allen, Mike Warren), UCLA '73 (Walton, Jamaal Wilkes, Larry Farmer), Indiana '76 (Quinn Buckner, Scott May, Kent Benson), North Carolina '82 (Perkins, Worthy and Jordan).
"It all started last year in the NCAA finals against Duke," Colson said. "Here's supposed to be the man of the year [Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski], and this is nothing against Mike, but it was embarrassing. Vegas just toyed with them, like [Duke] didn't know how to handle the pressure."
No one, not even the NCAA, which backed off its ruling to prohibit the Rebels from playing in this season's NCAA Tournament, has stood up to the Rebels' pressure.
Valvano says UNLV is the nation's best defensive team, "no question."
Newell says they rank among the best defensive teams ever, and Colson says simply, "I'm not sure this isn't the best defensive club ever put together."
Colson was impressed by the defense of Georgetown's teams with Patrick Ewing, "but at least you could run your offense against them."
No team has shown it can run its offense against UNLV.
"They're deeper and better than last year," Pimm said.
Four Rebels starters are back, and six UNLV players seem destined for the NBA.
Johnson, an All-American, has improved defensively, and Stacey Augmon is better offensively. They are the best NBA prospects at their respective positions and should be lottery picks.
Greg Anthony may be a first-rounder this year, and George Ackles, an improvement over the one departed Rebel, David Butler, may make it in the NBA, too.
Anderson Hunt, the 3-point specialist, will have to wait a year to get drafted, unless he leaves early.
Evric Gray and the man with the great first name, H Waldman (he says his nickname is H, without the period), give the Rebels the bench strength they lacked last season. Then they add a 7-footer, Elmore Spencer, who has NBA written all over him.
"But the thing that is most impressive about them," Walton said, "is how they play together. Over the years, Tarkanian has taken criticism that he runs a wild program. This team is about as far from that as you can get."
That's why UNLV is compared with the '76 Hoosiers, who also played so well together, even though Benson, May, Buckner and Bobby Wilkerson were good enough to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft. That was a coach's dream, and Knight was the dream coach.
"I don't think we would have been afraid to play some pro teams," said Tom Abernethy, the fifth starter on that Indiana team and also an NBA veteran.
Vitale says that Indiana team is the best ever and is reluctant to put UNLV in that class. Valvano says the Rebels may not have the size needed to match the all-time great teams.
"Larry Johnson is a great player," Valvano said, "but go against Walton, Jabbar or even Benson? I don't think so. They're just not big enough. Johnson is 6-7, at best."
Coping with Bill Russell would have been a task, too.
"The old saying, if you've got Russell in the middle, there's a lot of things you can do," said Mike Farmer, a starter on USF's '56 team, which had a 60-game win streak. "I haven't seen anything in the middle to touch him since. And we got to the Final Four the next season without him.
"I think we dominated more in our era than [the Rebels] do in theirs."
And nobody dominated like UCLA. Wooden refuses to say which of his UCLA teams was the best, claiming only that the once-beaten 1968 team of Mike Warren, Lynn Shackleford, Mike Lynn, Alcindor (Abdul-Jabbar) and Allen "was the most difficult for a team to play against."
"I don't think the present Las Vegas team would have put any fear into that team," he said.
Walton's crew won 88 straight games, and Larry Farmer notes that he was 60-0 his junior and senior seasons, which makes UNLV's 35-5 record last season look mediocre.
"We would have had trouble matching up with Larry [Johnson]," Farmer said, "but Walton would have given somebody on their team fits."
"If pressed, I guess I'd have to say the Jabbar teams were the best," said Guy V. Lewis, the former Houston coach who led Elvin Hayes and Akeem Olajuwon into the Final Four 14 years apart, "but I can't make comparisons. All I know is that this Vegas team is damn good."
by CNB