UNLV men’s golf team headed to Alabama for NCAA Regional
Had the UNLV men’s golf team been sent to the NCAA Regional in Albuquerque, New Mexico — where the Rebels won the 1998 NCAA title — instead of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the reaction inside the selection show watch party Thursday morning at Las Vegas Country Club might have been more than the equivalent of a golf clap.
“It would’ve been fun to go to Albuquerque, where I grew up basically and went to school there and we won the national championship there,” UNLV coach Dwaine Knight said. “That would’ve been a real treat. But it didn’t happen, so we have to get ready to go to Alabama.
“Alabama’s fine. We go back there every fall in case we’re going to the Southeast. Our normal schedule is set up to be comfortable wherever we have to go. We’ve done that ever since I’ve been here.”
The strategy has worked well for the Rebels, who played at the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in Birmingham, Alabama, in October and are headed to their NCAA-record 28th consecutive regional.
The Rebels are seeded fifth at Tuscaloosa, one of six regional sites across the country featuring a field of 81 teams that were announced live on the Golf Channel starting at 6:30 a.m. The top five teams from each 54-hole regional, which will be played May 16 to 18, advance to the finals, scheduled for May 27 to June 1 in Eugene, Oregon.
UNLV, which advanced to the Elite Eight in 2013, enters the postseason as one of the hottest teams in the nation. The Rebels have won three of their past four tournaments, claiming their first Mountain West title in 14 years April 24 in Tucson, Arizona.
UNLV has overcome adversity along the way, losing team captain AJ McInerney to a freak accident the week before the conference tournament that left the Coronado High School product with a fractured jaw and nose, five broken teeth and bleeding on his brain. While giving a friend a piggyback ride, McInerney lost his balance and fell chin first onto asphalt.
The day after McInerney was discharged from the hospital, he showed up at the Rebels’ 5:30 a.m. workout to wish his teammates luck before they left for the MW tournament.
“That gave us a little bit more inspiration,” said Englishman Harry Hall, named all-conference and the MW Freshman of the Year. “We all wore ‘AJ’ on our hats at the Mountain West tournament to think of him. It was a bit of a tragic accident.
“He’s my roommate on the road, and to not have him in the room was a bit strange. Being a freshman and he’s a senior, he’s had a lot to say in how I act. He’s been a role model to look up to.”
McInerney told his teammates before they left that he wanted a ring, and they obliged, rallying from two strokes down entering the final round to win by three shots over New Mexico.
“We won the conference just for him. It wasn’t really for us,” said sophomore Shintaro Ban, one of four all-conference players from UNLV, with Hall, sophomore John Oda and senior Zane Thomas, an Arbor View product. “To get that ring for him, that was pretty special.”
The Rebels now will focus on putting themselves in position to win a national championship ring.
“That’s our goal. We want to play in the national championship,” Knight said. “Our region is packed with (Southeastern Conference) teams. But we’ve played against the very best in the country all year long. And if adversity comes again, we’ve shown we can handle that.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow him on Twitter: @tdewey33
