Pastner’s second season off to 1-0 start after second half awakening

Looking to build off a season where UNLV men’s basketball won a game in the National Invitation Tournament, this year’s iteration of the team is off to a 1-0 start.

To begin head coach Josh Pastner’s second season as lead man of the Runnin’ Rebels, his club took down the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks, 89-77, Tuesday, Nov. 3 from the Thomas & Mack Center. It was the first official game for the program after losing two of its three exhibition games.

“It was a really good win,” Pastner said. “I said after the win, ‘Viva Las Vegas,’ but Viva The Press because we won the game because of our press. When you’re pressing and I’m committed to pressing, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be undisciplined or playing with unintelligent energy. Because when you press, you’ve got to actually be more disciplined and be more intelligent in the way you play.”

After going 11-6 at home last season, UNLV will have its first eight games of the year take place in Southern Nevada. Moreover, the team will only have three of its first 15 games come on the road.

“We want to try to win every game we play,” Pastner said. “That’s just the reality of it, no matter who your opponent is and everyone’s good [...] There’s no guarantee. But I know we’re going to play an exciting brand of basketball. We’re going to play hard, we’re going to compete, we’re going to be a fun team to watch.

“Again, there’s no guarantee on the result. We’ll see what happens.”

Pastner will have to do so with an entirely new group essentially as he sports a roster of 11 newcomers.

“Honestly, I feel like we’ve gelled together pretty quickly,” transfer senior Sebastian Mack said. “We do a lot of things on and off the court. I feel like we’ve got a good group of guys, we all built in on trying to win and having that one goal.”

Saturday brings a chance for the Rebels to move to 2-0 when Samford comes to town. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. from the Thomas & Mack Center.

“We’ve gotten better,” Pastner said. “Every time we’ve stepped on the floor, we have improved.”

UNLV went on a 7-0 run to break a 62-all tie about midway through the second half. That push was enough to eventually build a double-digit lead and go up by as many as 14 points in a game where it trailed by double-figures itself in the first half.

Mack had it going in both halves beginning with 17 points in the first 20-minute period. Before playing collegiately at UCLA and Missouri, Mack starred at Coronado High School in Henderson.

“It felt good being out here in high school playing ball,” he said. “To be able to come back has been great. Having to see all my family, friends, coming to support and bring that attention to UNLV has been good for me. It’s the best decision I’ve made.”

That early performance was needed as Northern Arizona grabbed its first lead about halfway through the first half. The visitors would soon go up 12 points highlighted by an 8-0 run at one point.

The Lumberjacks connected on eight of their 13 three-point attempts in the first half in a game where it shot 52% from the field. Though exhibition games before Tuesday’s opener, opponents’ field goal percentage have increased in all four showings this year.

“BYU, Missouri and this game, we’ve pressed for 40 minutes,” Pastner said. “So when you do that, there are going to be open shots here or there. It’s that you’re trying to wear teams down and there are going to be some open shots here or there.”

Just before halftime, the Rebels went on a 12-4 run to close the gap to four points. Coming out of the break, the team immediately jumped into a fullcourt trap after flirting with a fullcourt press and three-quarters court trap in the first half.

“I feel like it gave us the momentum we needed,” Mack said. “We worked all summer on being conditioned to be able to do that all game. That’s what we were supposed to do and that’s what we trained to do.”

Mack added 14 more points in the second half to finish with a career-high 31 points in the game 50% shooting with four made threes.

“The only thing I’m going to look at is the win,” he said. “First one for the season. We’re just trying to build off that.”

Sophomore guard Cam Miles scored 10 of his 15 points in the second half while also tallying a game-high four assists.

“Cam Miles has gotten better,” Pastner said. “When you looked at him in the Utah game, you were like, ‘Woo, he’s got a long way to go [in] our point guard play.’ He got better against BYU. He was really good against Missouri – a rebound away from a triple-double and he was good again tonight.”

Sophomore forward Tyrin Jones added 12 points on 3-of-8 from the field but did drill a three-pointer in the team’s opener. He’s already halfway to his total from last season of two.

“I went right in on him at halftime,” Pastner said. “He wasn’t good the first half. I told him, ‘Are you reading your press clippings? Are people telling you how good that dunk was versus Missouri?’

“I said, ‘I don’t care about that, nobody cares about the Missouri game. Too many people are patting you on your rear end’ [...] I laid into him and to his credit, he responded. He’s a culture warrior for us, incredible young man and he responded the right way.”

Junior guard Dontrez Williams chipped in with 12 points on a perfect 4-of-4 from the floor. In addition, redshirt senior center Jeremy Foumena recorded a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

The native of Montreal, Quebec, Canada gobbled up five rebounds in the first four minutes of the game.

“Jeremy Foumena has continued to improve,” Pastner said. “I know a lot of people weren’t real high on Jeremy when we got him because they watched practice [and] they weren’t really sure.

“With his size and he’s gotten better and better and better and he’s a guy that’s hard to take out. He’s been really good and he runs hard.”