Josh Pastner Aims to Revive UNLV Hoops & Reignite Las Vegas Basketball Pride

The UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team has seen a steep decline in success over the last half-dozen years, which has led to a decline in attendance and enthusiasm for the once-great basketball powerhouse. Their athletic director Erick Harper has hired former Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets head coach Josh Pastner to take over as the Rebels' new head coach and turn the program around. The expectation is that Pastner will return the program to prominence. However, Pastner made it clear that he doesn't want to just bring the basketball back to its glory days but the entire community in Las Vegas.

“That is what is owed to the fan base at UNLV,” Pastner said. “I want to have everybody understand that this is not going to be about me and a couple players. This is going to be the whole city getting back involved, and getting everybody to come (to games), to help build the program back to where we want to get—back to NCAA tournaments and winning championships. That’s what we want to do. Absolutely.”

We have already heard Pastner speak fondly about his memories of UNLV growing up and reminisce about how they, along with Arizona, were the two powerhouse programs in the West that everyone wanted to be a part of when he was playing college ball.

“I remember being with coach Olson and talking in meetings about UNLV and Arizona, the rivalry between the two, and how awesome it was to try to compete to be a juggernaut in the landscape of college basketball,” said Pastner. “And so in my mind, I had always felt like this was a dream job, like this was the ultimate job ... This is going to be our team. This has to be Las Vegas’ team.”

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