June 18, 2008
LAS VEGAS - The UNLV men's basketball team will hold a public practice event on Saturday, June 21 at 5 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack Center. Admission is free for the event, which will be a public send-off for the team as it embarks on its summer foreign tour of Australia.
"We have appreciated the tremendous support we have received from the community during our practices as we get ready for this trip," head coach Lon Kruger said. "The fans that have been coming to our practices have been great. They have provided a different type of energy for our players and the guys have enjoyed that. We hope everyone can make it on Saturday to the Thomas & Mack Center to send the team off to Australia on a high note."
The practice will be one of the Runnin' Rebels' final sessions as they prepare for their six-game exhibition tour of the land Down Under from June 25-July 5.
Doors open at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and concessions will be sold. Fans are invited to stay after practice to meet the players and coaches and wish them well on their trip.
The team will practice two more times after Saturday - on Sunday and Monday - before boarding a plane to Australia on Monday evening, June 23.
A webpage has been created at UNLVRebels.com where fans can follow the team's progress during practice sessions as well as during the trip to Australia. Click here for the page. Features include relevant links such as the day-by-day itinerary, game schedule and roster. Recaps and available stats from the games will also be posted and there is a blog that has been updated daily and will continue to be, with features including photos, videos, audio clips and more from the Runnin' Rebels' experiences.
Non-donor season tickets went on sale today including a limited quantity (2000) of $90 entry-level seats for the 2008-09 season. Also on sale are other non-donor (non-Rebel Athletic Fund) season tickets for the upcoming season. Tickets may be purchased by calling 702-739-FANS (3267), online at UNLVTickets.com, the Thomas & Mack Center ticket office or any UNLVTickets outlet. A total of less than 1,200 seats are available in the lower level plaza of the Thomas & Mack Center for Runnin' Rebel basketball.
UNLV finished the 2007-08 season with an overall record of 27-8 and lost to eventual national champion Kansas in the NCAA Tournament's second round. The appearance in the NCAA Tournament was the second straight for UNLV, which advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2007, and the first time that the Runnin' Rebels won games in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments since 1990 and 1991.
UNLV finished second in the Mountain West Conference this past season with a 12-4 mark for the second consecutive year and won the MWC Tournament championship, also for the second straight time.
Kruger, who was named the 2007-08 MWC and USBWA District VIII Coach of the Year, will enter his fifth season at UNLV in 2008-09 after compiling a four-year mark of 91-42 (.684), including a record of 57-15 (.792) over the last two seasons. UNLV's 57 wins over the past two years ranks ninth in the country among teams that have played in each of the last two NCAA Tournaments and is the second-most victories over the last two years among teams in the West, only behind UCLA.
UNLV has a 15-game home win streak, which is the 11th-longest active streak in the country, has compiled a record of 38-3 at home over the last two seasons and has won 24 straight games against MWC opponents at the Thomas & Mack Center.
UNLV loses only two players from last season's team - seniors Curtis Terry and Corey Bailey. The Runnin' Rebels will have four seniors on the 2008-09 roster in Wink Adams, Joe Darger, René Rougeau and Mareceo Rutledge (three of them starters) and return a total of six letterwinners from last year, while welcoming six new faces. Several publications have listed UNLV in their early 2008-09 preseason Top 25 polls.
