Counting on Kruger: How UNLV’s new basketball coach will succeed where others have failed

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Courtesy UNLV

Kevin Kruger, an assistant basketball coach the past two seasons at UNLV, was elevated to head coach on March 21, 2021. Kruger was part of UNLV’s Sweet Sixteen team in 2007. That squad was coached by his dad, Lon.

Thu, Apr 1, 2021 (2 a.m.)

UNLV really, really needs a good head basketball coach.

The men’s program has been hurting for the better part of the past decade, with no Mountain West Conference championships and no NCAA Tournament berths in the past seven years. That includes the entire coaching tenures of T.J. Otzelberger and Marvin Menzies, and the end of Dave Rice’s term. 

Because of that extended run of misfortune, the program now finds itself on the outside looking in when it comes to the Las Vegas sports landscape. Golden Knights mania continues to sweep the town and the Raiders benefit from the NFL being king of the hill, while the Thomas & Mack Center sits nearly empty on most game nights—and that was before the pandemic kept crowds away.

So yeah, there’s a lot of pressure on newly appointed Kevin Kruger to come through and restore UNLV basketball to its winning ways. The good news is that though he’s a first-time head coach, the 37-year-old Kruger has every opportunity to succeed.

Here are four reasons UNLV fans should be excited about Kruger’s ascendance to the top job and believe he’s the one to turn the program around.

1. He’s here for the long run.

After being spurned by Mick Cronin, Chris Beard and now Otzelberger, who left at the first opportunity for his dream job at Iowa State, UNLV diehards are wounded and bitter. They want loyalty. They want someone who loves Las Vegas and UNLV, not someone who’s eyeing the next opportunity to climb the ladder.

Kruger is the perfect fit in that regard. He played for the last great UNLV team, helping the scarlet and gray reach the Sweet 16 in 2007 and building a lifelong bond with the university. He just finished his second season as an assistant coach and at his introductory press conference, he declared his intentions to be at UNLV for as long as the school will have him.

“This is not a steppingstone for me,” Kruger said. “Personally, I don’t see five years in the future being anywhere else, or 10 years in the future being anywhere else.”

2. He’s got the chops.

Kruger was always a cerebral player—he’s a coach’s son—and the current UNLV roster believes in his brand of Xs and Os.

One player vouched for Kruger, saying he drew up a chunk of the playbook and often called offensive sets during the course of games.

“We loved him as an assistant coach,” the player said. “He’s definitely a great offensive mind. One thing he was great at this year was drawing up plays on the fly for us. Those were always very good.”

Kruger’s system may look different than Otzelberger’s, as the new coach doesn’t sound quite as committed to an analytics-based philosophy. But whether it was during his time as a collegiate point guard or now holding the clipboard, Kruger knows how to run an offense.

3. The timing is right for a quick turnaround.

When Menzies took over late in the spring of 2016, he had to replace most of the roster with whatever ill-fitting pieces were left over on the transfer and prep markets.

Otzelberger had to do something similar when he got the job in 2019. Due to inheriting a total tear-down job, neither coach was set up for immediate success.

Kruger is in a better position. As an internal hire, he’s at least got a shot at retaining some of the current UNLV players. And with the NCAA expected to pass a rule granting immediate eligibility to transfers, the transfer portal is going to be overstuffed with talent.

While Menzies had to pick through the scraps and build his first roster out of plywood, Kruger has plenty of time to sort through the portal, identify key targets and add some true quality players to the 2021-22 team.

The pieces are in place for a quick turnaround at UNLV if Kruger is up to the task.

4. Lon will be helping out.

Since Jerry Tarkanian held the job for 19 years, no other UNLV coach has served as long as Lon Kruger did from 2004-2011. Those seven seasons are now remembered fondly by fans as the second golden era of the program, and Kevin Kruger is the perfect bridge to that past.

And hey, the actual past may be making an appearance, too. The 68-year-old Lon Kruger announced his retirement after his Oklahoma team was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament, and he’ll be residing in Las Vegas from now on, just a stone’s throw from the UNLV campus.

To hear Kevin tell it, it sounds like Lon will be around the program and on call to offer advice and guidance.

“He can be on staff if he wants,” Kevin Kruger said. “That would be great. I’m sure knowing him, he will be willing and able and hoping to help UNLV. Not just basketball, but UNLV in any possible way he can—in the community or coming to practice and helping or talking to coaches or whatever he can do.”

UNLV has a promising young coach who loves the program, a Hall of Fame-caliber adviser, a decent shot of keeping some of the roster together and a head start on pumping the transfer portal for talented newcomers. This might just work out after all.

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.

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