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The most interesting on-court topic regarding UNLV’s upcoming basketball season is how the Rebels will divvy up their 200 allotted minutes each game between five returners, four transfers and three top-100 freshmen. Keeping them all happy seems like a near impossibility, so it would make sense to use the last open scholarship on a player who could sit back this season and contribute more down the road.
With that in mind, a natural reaction to reports from earlier this week that Florida transfer Eli Carter is coming to visit this weekend is — why? And it has little to do with the player himself.
Carter, a New Jersey native, is a 6-foot-2 guard who played his first two seasons at Rutgers and the last two with the Gators. Carter broke his leg at Rutgers on Feb. 16, 2013, and tried playing at Florida nine months later but wasn’t fully healthy, so he took a medical redshirt before returning to the court last year.
The graduate transfer rule means Carter, who visited Georgetown last weekend, will be eligible immediately at his next destination, so wherever he ends up needs to put Carter to use immediately. That, basically, is why UNLV as a landing spot is a bit of a head-scratcher.
A guard- and wing-heavy roster with multiple ball-handlers, shooters and long-limbed defenders measuring at least 6-foot-5 would seem to have little need for another, smaller guard to join the mix. Especially when you look at how much Carter has struggled since the injury.
When Carter suffered a broken fibula, which coincidentally led to a few more minutes for former Scarlet Knight and current Rebel Jerome Seagears, he was leading the team with 14.9 points per game. Since then it’s been a struggle — he averaged 8.8 points per game at Florida last year — although warning signs were there even before the injury.
Carter took the highest percentage of shots on both of his Rutgers teams and ranked second on Florida last season, all despite never shooting above 45 percent on 2s or 35.3 percent on 3s. His 3-point shooting percentage dropped each year (last year it was 30.5) but his attempts remained about the same. It takes really good defense to overcome being a low percentage volume shooter.
The counter is that UNLV coach Dave Rice, who had former supporters lobbying for his firing less than three months ago, needs to go all in this season. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where another year of mediocre results will be tolerated so there’s an extra emphasis from the staff to make this work immediately.
One of Rice’s most-repeated lines is — there’s no substitute for experience. It’s hardly unique for a coach to value players who are a little older and (potentially) wiser but it’s important to know that experience is near the top of Rice’s list.
It’s a big reason why the starting point guard for the first game will likely be a transfer upperclassman for the third straight season. Two years ago it was Mississippi State and junior college guard Deville Smith, who then followed former assistant Heath Schroyer to UT Martin, last year it was San Francisco guard Cody Doolin and at this stage the favorite to land that spot is Seagears.
Rice wants a veteran steering the ship and a few more of them sprinkled throughout the roster, too. Oregon forward Ben Carter and Seagears came in last year, then this offseason it was Mercer guard Ike Nwamu and JUCO forward Tyrell Bellot-Green.
The press releases for those four, plus other recent guys like Doolin and Roscoe Smith, all included a quote mentioning the experience they would bring. Their previous playing time hasn’t always translated to positive results on the court for UNLV but it’s clear it’s a priority, especially in the offseason after Rice had the 20th-least experienced roster in the country, per kenpom.com.
There’s no doubt the pressure is on Rice and his staff to succeed this year, and they’re so well connected in recruiting that perhaps they’re not concerned with bringing in a piece for depth that they’ll immediately have to replace. But if there’s still a need on this year’s roster it’s in the front court and with a core that either played or practiced at UNLV last season experience doesn’t seem to be in such short supply.
Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.
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