Ed Graney: UNLV coach wants to avoid roller-coaster ride, seeks consistency

Ed Graney, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Oct 12, 2026

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LAS VEGAS — He doesn’t want to ride a roller coaster like last year. He certainly doesn’t want to have trainers nurse as many injuries to players as then. He wants a more consistent path by which to follow.

Josh Pastner is hoping for a more straight ahead approach: Rebound the ball, take care of the ball, gain as many possessions of the ball as possible to make your team’s speed a strength.

Do that, and the UNLV men’s basketball coach sees improvement and, ultimately, success this coming season.

The Rebels on Wednesday night played the first of three home exhibitions against Power 4 opponents when losing to Utah 79-69. There is also a matchup with BYU on Oct. 24 and Missouri on Oct. 29.

There is a method to the madness and that’s to make sure UNLV is far more prepared to begin a season come November than in Pastner’s first season as coach.

That’s when the Rebels fell in two of their first three games, losing to Tennessee-Martin and Montana.

Welcome to church

UNLV finished 18-17 overall and advanced to the second round of the NIT. It’s important that things are much better this season. Pastner dreams of a return to days when the Thomas & Mack Center was a raucous atmosphere and not the church-like existence it has been for some time now.

Then the solution is simple: His team must win.

And playing an exciting brand of ball won’t hurt, either.

“There’s no other way of putting it — winning solves everything,” Pastner said. “We have to do our part and play meaningful games late in the season. We have to play a great style, but we have to be competing for championships. I get it. That’s the deal.

“I keep saying, ‘What comes first, the chicken or the egg?’ We need people back in the arena to help us get over the hump, too.”

He readily admits it is a longer rebuild than first imagined. He remembers the first regular-season game of last season — “We lost, so put that one on me,” Pastner said — when the university was renaming its court for the late Jerry Tarkanian.

Pastner assumed the crowd would be in the area of 12,000 folks, but then stopped and looked around.

“There weren’t a lot of people,” he said. “I turned to one of my coaches and said, ‘This thing is a bigger rebuild than I thought,’ meaning it was going to take as much energy as I had to help get people back and excited. It was going to take double the energy.”

No one has ever accused him of not having that. He’s a ball of energy. Never stops. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate to baskets and wins.

They’re fast and quick and long in some areas but not very big. It will be critical their perimeter players rebound at both ends.

He says their identity must be one of great toughness, of being gritty with competitive excellence. All things UNLV players have control over. That they have to be a hard-nosed group to succeed. That they have to be the ones corralling loose balls, whether on the floor or coming off the glass.

“We install it every day, we talk about it all the time, we emphasize and reinforce it at practice,” Pastner said. “Now, we just have to get on the court and show it.”

AJ Storr case

His team appears set but for one major decision and that comes from whether or not talented senior guard AJ Storr will be deemed eligible.

Storr, the Mississippi transfer, was ineligible via a court ruling in Tennessee in August. It’s one of several similar cases being played out across the country when it comes to the high school class of 2022.

When he signed with the Rebels, Storr had two injunctions making him eligible. Both were then stayed.

Storr and other members of the 2022 class sued the NCAA to pursue an additional season of eligibility.

“The playing rules of the game and eligibility rules of the game have to remain the same,” Pastner said. “You can’t have some state court cases saying kids can play and other courts saying they can’t. Play them all or don’t play them. That’s my two cents.

“We hope to get AJ eligible. I think we’ll know more about it over the next couple weeks.”

Until then, he will coach his team not to ride any roller coasters this season.

Steady as it goes promises far more success.

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