Chris Beard already has one Las Vegas fan when he coaches at UNLV
It was a little past 6 p.m. Saturday. One former UNLV coach (Oklahoma’s Lon Kruger) had just punched his Final Four ticket; another (Villanova’s Jay Wright) was getting his ticket puncher ready versus mighty Kansas when my cellphone started to buzz.
Was it Mr. Mayhem from the Allstate company calling?
No, it was Musiette McKinney from The Center for Academic Enrichment and Outreach, UNLV’s educational opportunity program on East Tropicana Avenue.
She had heard that Chris Beard, the Arkansas-Little Rock basketball coach, was in town to interview for the UNLV job that Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin didn’t want.
She was so excited.
You could tell because she used those emoji things in her text messages.
McKinney, a former coach herself — she had played point guard at Cal Poly Pomona and was an assistant with the Lady Rebels under Jim Bolla — had served as official Little Rock host during the team’s stay in Denver for the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
Her job as liaison was to make sure Chris Beard and his players had everything they needed during their stay in Denver. Such as snow shovels. During the games, she watched over Beard’s daughters. She made sure they were safe and enjoyed the games.
They really enjoyed the first game against Purdue.
Josh Hagins, Little Rock’s point guard, sank a three-point basket from somewhere near Aurora to force overtime.
Little Rock would vanquish the vaunted, or at least the higher-seeded Boilermakers of the Big 10, in double overtime. This extended the lore of 12 vs. 5 at the Big Dance, and put daddy on UNLV’s radar — at least after the dog and pony show that was Mick Cronin’s recruitment ran its course and left a foul smell, as dog and pony shows tend to do.
“I hosted him for NCAA in Denver,” Musiette McKinney wrote in one of a series of text messages.
“I spent the whole week with him.
“Love him. Awesome man, family man, respected coach. Class act.”
Then six thumbs-up emojis.
The week before, Musiette McKinney had sent a bunch of photos to my cellphone.
One was of the snowstorm in Denver.
One was of her holding a Little Rock basketball.
One was of the front page of USA Today. It showed Josh Hagins hooking his thumbs in the armpit holes and puffing out his jersey so you could see who he plays for after Little Rock had vanquished Purdue.
The story talked about Chris Beard growing up in Irving, Texas, a football town, which all towns in Texas are with the possible exception of El Paso.
It said the rec center in Irving would close at 10 p.m., but sometimes the lady at the front desk would tell Beard and his buddies that she had to clean the rec room, so they probably had time for one more game.
It said when one of the buddies turned 16 and learned to drive, he’d pull up the car to the park in Irving where Chris Beard hooped it up. He’d turn the headlights on the court, so Beard and the buddies could continue playing after the lady at the front desk cleaned the rec room.
“Eventually the cops would come and tell us we had to leave,” Beard said.
“But it’s the whole idea of one more game.”
It was always about one more game, Beard said, even in this itinerant new ABA with the South Carolina Warriors, and that’s why it was so cool that Little Rock was getting to play one more game, against Iowa State.
Little Rock lost. Most bracket busters do in the second round. Except for Butler.
But Little Rock won at San Diego State in November, and it wasn’t first side to 50 wins. Little Rock scored only 49 points and yet it still won, because San Diego State scored only 43. The guy in the stands holding up the big D and the picket fence surely must have loved it.
There was a report that both sides wore satin basketball shorts and shot their free throws Granny-style, in the manner of Rick Barry or Wilt Chamberlain or Jackie Moon of the Flint Tropics, which weren’t the South Carolina Warriors’ chief rivals but could have been.
Five days later, Chris Beard’s team played in the Orleans Arena, beating East Carolina 54-46 in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational. There might have been a sentence about it in the sports briefs.
The next time Chris Beard’s team plays in Las Vegas, there will be a lot more than one sentence written about it.
If the Rebels win, even if it’s 49-43, people will say it appears this Beard guy can really coach, what a great hire it was, and that there’s esoteric and sublime beauty in winning 49-43.
Somebody may quote Bob Cousy or Dolph Schayes.
And then somebody probably will print up a bunch of “Fear the Beard” T-shirts, and the kids in the student section under the basket will try to grow one.
There will be more thumbs-up emojis in text messages if UNLV wins.
But should the Rebels lose, people will troll message boards and write that UNLV should have hired Stacey Augmon.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski
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