Sept. 5, 2008
LAS VEGAS - The UNLV men's basketball team has been ranked No. 24 in the Athlon Sports College Basketball annual magazine's preseason top 25, which will hit newsstands Tuesday, September 9.
The magazine also lists UNLV as a team to advance to the NCAA Tournament in March, which would mark the squad's third straight appearance. Additionally, the magazine tabbed senior guard Wink Adams a first team All-Mountain West Conference pick.
All season tickets, in both donor and non-donor seating areas, are now available for purchase for the 2008-09 Runnin' Rebel season. Limited seating is available in the plaza level in both donor and non-donor areas. Balcony season tickets for 18 home games at the Thomas & Mack Center are available for $175 and $90 - with the $90 endzone balcony season ticket being introduced this season.
For more information on purchasing season tickets, call 702-739-FANS (3267). Those interested in purchasing donor season tickets in the plaza level should call 702-895-1533. Remaining tickets are expected to go on sale on a single-game basis in October.
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 seniors from last season's team - Curtis Terry and Corey Bailey. The Runnin' Rebels will have four seniors on the 2008-09 roster in Adams, Joe Darger, René Rougeau and Mareceo Rutledge (three of them starters from last year). Several publications have listed UNLV in their early 2008-09 preseason Top 25 polls. UNLV completed its summer foreign exhibition tour of Australia in July and compiled a 4-2 mark.
