The UNLV men’s basketball team has absorbed several heavyweight blows this year; the type, in fact, that stop teams in their tracks and take away their wind.
Before the 2007-08 season even began, they had lost, to graduation, five seniors who led the Runnin’ Rebels to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 last year. Four of whom started on that unforgettable squad, which returned both glory and enthusiasm to the historic program.
Then, on the day of the team’s first official practice this season, they learned that they would have to play the year without their star freshman recruit, Beas Hamga, a 7-foot prodigy whom the NCAA required to red-shirt on account of strange academic technicalities.
During the first half of the season, the Rebels suffered devastating losses to Santa Barbara, Louisville and Arizona—the latter two of whom are national powerhouses. All three were heartbreakers, games UNLV could have won—should have won—would have won—but did not win.
But the punch that hurt the team the most, according to the players, was losing three of its members to irreconcilable differences and disciplinary problems. They are a tight group. Those dismissals continue to sting.
In large part because it left them a very small team. Their tallest starter now—Joe Darger, at 6-foot-7—is a guard at heart who prefers the three-point line to the post.
“Yeah, we’ve been through a lot of adversity this year,” says senior Curtis Terry, who’s had to play all five positions on the court this season. “But I think we’ve surprised some people.”
For sure. The Runnin’ Rebels have remained in the race for the Mountain West Conference season title all year, with a record of 11-3 in conference play, currently in second place. (All statistics are as of March 3.) Moreover, with an overall record of 22-6, they’ve kept themselves in the discussion for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, and maintained last year’s esprit de corps at the Thomas & Mack.
In other words, this year’s UNLV team is like an undersized but indomitable boxer who keeps coming forward.
Coach Lon Kruger says the team reflects the personality of the leaders—Terry, Corey Bailey, Rene Rougeau, Wink Adams.
“They’re unselfish, very trusting of their teammates, and extreme competitors,” says Kruger.
And further, he says: “Wink is the core of that.”
It’s true. In basketball, perhaps the most effective way to overcome adversity is to play persistent hard-nosed defense. It is the aspect of the game that doesn’t rely on luck or hot streaks, but sheer and simple effort. “That’s what Wink does,” says Terry. “He defends. When you need someone to defend the ball, he’s the guy to do it, and that’s the biggest thing.”
Adams’ on-ball pressure is intense, and it sets the tone for the team’s entire defensive scheme. It’s but one of the ways by which the Runnin’ Rebels take after him, their leading scorer and only returning starter from last year’s team.
Kruger’s highest-rated recruit to date, Adams, a junior from Texas, has started all but 10 games since his freshman year, accumulated numerous preseason, regular-season and postseason awards and proven to be a potent scorer against even the highest competition, tallying his 1,000th career point this year. But it’s been Adams’ reaction to adversity that’s proven most valuable. On this particular team, it has made him the tacit general.
After a frigid shooting slump to begin the season, Adams has been on fire the past month, scoring more than 20 points in six of UNLV’s last 11 games, including a career-high 33 against Wyoming on January 23.
He has played his best ball when the team most needs it—in clutch situations, when the other team is rallying, and, above all, in response to a loss.
That, in large part, is the reason UNLV, after each of its six losses, has come back to win the next game.
“Wink is so competitive, he’s not afraid to take on the responsibility of putting the team on his shoulders,” says Kruger. “I think the other guys take security in that.”
A Lilliputian by today’s college-basketball standards—at just 6 feet tall—Adams says he grew up on the basketball court accustomed to adversity.
“I was always smaller than everyone else,” he says, a shy but triumphant and totally irresistible smile forming. “I had to learn to overcome it.”
His team, too, has done the same this year. They’ve been playing much bigger than they in actuality are.
And that, perhaps, is the greatest attribute a team can carry with it into March Madness.
Photograph by Aaron Thompson