UNLV Rolls The Dice On Otzelberger

Author: Matt Raftery

UNLV has announced that it has hired a new men's basketball coach. Many fans will tell you that T.J. Otzelberger was not the first guy to come to mind to fill the vacancy. Otzelberger was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is currently 41 years of age. A fresh, new, and young face to the Runnin Rebel program. Otzelberger started his coaching career in 2001 as the head coach of Burlington Catholic Central HS in Milwaukee and later moving to the collegiate level as an assistant coach at Chipola College in Marianna, Florida in 2004 and as an assistant at Iowa State in 2006 before going to be an assistant at the University of Washington in 2013.

South Dakota State then offered him his first head coaching gig in 2016. To Otzelberger’s credit, he did compile a 70-33 record as the head coach of the Jackrabbits and won 2 Summit League tournament titles along with 2 Summit League regular season championships during his time at South Dakota State. He also made 2 appearances in the NCAA tournament and an appearance in the NIT during his 3 years at SDSU. Certainly, Otzelberger is not the same names, such as Miller or Pitino, that the UNLV fanbase was pushing for to become the new head coach. Coach Otzelberger brings an fast-paced offense with him that certainly put the Runnin' back in Runnin' Rebels.

The big question is can Coach Otzelberger put the fans back in the red seats at the Thomas & Mack Center? This question in particular was one of Marvin Menzies’s biggest downfalls. Menzies did not get people to the Mack on a regular basis plain and simple. Often times, Menzies would draw crowds of less than 8,000 which is less than half capacity of the 18,000 seats the Mack has to offer.

The formula is simple for Coach Otzelberger here in Vegas, WIN. Win and people will start showing up to support the Runnin' Rebels. This is how the Vegas Golden Knights were able to get Vegas to invest in them and get T-Mobile Arena sold out every game. Win and win a lot.

Let's all take a deep breath here and give T.J. Otzelberger a chance here at UNLV. I guarantee you this. If he wins, people will forget all the criticism they have been giving him since his hiring was announced. If he can make UNLV relevant again in the Mountain West Conference and get the Runnin' Rebels runnin' back into the NCAA tournament, Rebel Nation will embrace him with open arms.