UNLV to make decision on Marvin Menzies following season

UNLV Rebels head coach Marvin Menzies talks to his players during the second half of the UNLV Rebels and the New Mexico Lobos NCAA basketball game at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. UNLV won 74-58. (Brett Le Blanc/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

UNLV basketball coach Marvin Menzies’ job status will be evaluated at the end of the season, athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois said Monday.

“The program is doing some very good things academically and in the community,” Reed-Francois said in a text message. “Coach Menzies and his staff are working hard. Consistent with what we do with all of our programs, we will sit down at the end of the season and evaluate it holistically.”

Menzies, 57, is nearing the end of his third season at UNLV, where he is 42-44. The Rebels are 11-10 (5-4 in the Mountain West), and have lost three games in a row each by 17 points at San Diego State, to No. 6 UNR and at Utah State. They play at Boise State at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Two years remain on Menzies’ contract after this season. He earns $700,000, but his salary would increase to $800,000 if he returns. Should Reed-Francois choose to part ways, UNLV would owe Menzies an $800,000 buyout.

Menzies, who did not comment on this story, took over UNLV after nine seasons at New Mexico State, where he went 198-111 and made five NCAA Tournaments.

He inherited a mess at UNLV, which in January 2016 fired coach Dave Rice and then conducted a search that saw Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin turn down the job and Chris Beard accept it only to leave for Texas Tech less than a month later.

By the time Menzies arrived, two scholarship players remained, and he committed to build the program with freshmen and players who would remain for three or fours years. He had to scrap together a recruiting class after being hired late in the process, and the Rebels went 11-21 in the 2016-17 season.

Menzies then landed the Mountain West’s top-rated recruiting class, and the Rebels finished 20-13 last season, but were 8-10 in conference play.

This season, UNLV freshmen Joel Ntambwe (21) and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua (11) each have been starters, and the Rebels have been hit with season-ending injuries to forward Shakur Juiston (knee) and Cheickna Dembele (hand).

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.