SportsPrep Live

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Graydon Prescott 0:17
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of sports prep live, sports prep live, where we unbox the bike and talk excellence in athletics.

Graydon Prescott 0:35
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of sports prep live. I'm your host, great and Prescott and today, today is a big day, as promised last week, we are sitting down with UNLV new Head Basketball Coach Josh Pastner. Now the rebels did have an exhibition match at Washington last week where they suffered a 77 to 62 loss, but for 13 players on their roster are on scholarship. Seven of those players are injured right now, so we're going to give our rebels a pass for the loss last week. But with that being said, we need the student body. We need the city of Las Vegas to show up and show out tomorrow at Thomas and Mack Center and be that sixth man on the court for the Rebels, because they have so many players out with injury, and we need that to continue for the rest of the year. So to promote their season, here is UNLV new basketball Head Coach Josh Pastner, right here on Sports prep live today, we have a very special guest, the new head coach of unlvs basketball program. Coach Josh Pastner is on the show. Coach, welcome to the show. Thanks

Josh Pastner 1:43
for having me great and really appreciate it. Appreciate you reaching out to me, obviously, being a new coach here, it is critical for the student body, yeah, to to know their coach, to know their program, and to try to get this entire student body back into Thomas and Mac center and and be excited about their basketball team. So thank you for having me.

Graydon Prescott 2:09
Of course, of course. So let's jump right in. From day one, you've emphasized effort and competitiveness, bringing back the Running Rebels identity. How have the guys responded to that standard during the off season and in early practices.

Josh Pastner 2:22
Well, great. And let me, let me tell you how I view things, because everyone tells me what's your identity of your team, or, you know what? I want us to have competitive excellence, right? Okay? And people are always asking, what does that look like? Now I can view it because I'm the head coach, and I've been around a long time. I know when someone's playing with a great motor and a competitor, but you know, if great, if you're at our game and you're in, you're watching, well, how are you going to define what competitive excellence is? Yes, we want to win every game. That's why there's a scoreboard. We want to outscore the opponent. But how does great and determined, okay, take out the scoreboard for a second. Man, that team has great competitive excellence. Here's how I view it, great. And if you were playing for me, and I said, You got to run a I call like a deep six, where it's touched the line six different times, down and back down and back down and back. And you got to do it in 34 seconds. Well, I gave you a mission to do it gave you some constraints, and if you do it in 34 seconds, to me, you're playing you're you're working hard. You're playing hard because you have you're a high character person, and you want to meet the time and you're going to get it done in 34 seconds, right? And so that's millions of people do that, millions and millions. But competing is different. If I said, Great, and you've got to do this in 34 seconds, the deep six. And instead you say to yours, in your mind, you're like, Okay, Coach, I'm going to do this in 28 seconds. To me, that's competing, yeah, you're exhausting every ounce of energy of inside your body, because you are a competitor. Instead of just saying, I'm just going to make the time in 34 seconds, because that's what I was told to do. That's working hard. There's nothing wrong with that, yeah, but a competitor that's competitive excellence is exhausting everything you have. So I'm trying to get our guys to understand that that's the identity of our of your team, the students, team, your program, what you want to see on the floor?

Graydon Prescott 4:22
Yeah, so with the season right around the corner, what is that going to look like for your team on the basketball court? We know in practice, that's what you've been seeing, and that's what you've been proud to see. What do you want to see from your team on the court? Defining that competitive

Josh Pastner 4:35
excellence? Well, what I would tell you is, first we got to get healthy, because we're really banged up. We play Washington coming up here in an exhibition game at Washington, and we have 13 scholarship players. Well, six are on the IR, on the injured reserve. So we have seven guys eligible, healthy enough to play. So I think I really love our team. Hmm, when we're fully healthy, we're really good. The issue is we're not fully healthy. I mean, half of our team is out. So that, to me, is the most challenging component for us. Is, how do we get the guys back healthy? But then they have to be in the conditioning, the endurance, they need the endurance, the conditioning, to be able to compete at the level that the standards we have, and then they've got to get back into the chemistry and the cohesiveness of the guys who've been practicing for all these months, right? You know? So that's going to be the challenging part for us. We'll see how it goes. We just, I think the first order of business is we've got to get our full team fully healthy.

Graydon Prescott 5:40
Yeah. So for those of you who don't know Coach Pastner, this isn't just a coaching legend. This is a basketball legend too. Let's bring it back to 1997 you won a national championship at the University of Arizona. Talk about how that national championship experience being on a high level collegiate basketball team has shaped your coaching career.

Josh Pastner 6:02
Yeah. Well, what I would tell you great, and is, first of all is just thinking about this, hearing your voice like you got a good voice. Thank you. You should, you know, you got a good you got a good voice, whatever you want to do in communications, or, you know, media, whatever it may be. So I wanted to compliment you on that. Thank you very much. You have a good, good voice, and how that how that goes. So, yes, I was on the team that won the 1997 national championship. Pretty darn cool. Yeah, it's very, very hard to win a national title. Oh yeah, to be on that team, we had a great team, and to be on that team was, was, was outstanding. And so the experience of that, it was, was fantastic that I can try to relate to our guys here. Now I do have Stacey ogman on our staff. Yes, Stacey ogman was probably the greatest rebel to ever play here, part of the team that won the 1990 national championship. He played 15 years in the NBA, and so he and I, usually when I'm coaching teams, I'm the only guy that's been part of a team that's won a national championship. Now, I've got Stacy augment with me alongside on that, but yeah, so it's a good deal you try to explain, teach, motivate, mentor the young men are in this program, on on, on what it really takes to get to that level, and how it and how it looks and and that's an everyday process. Because when you're when you're practicing and you're teaching, because when you're a coach, you're really a teacher, especially at this level. You know, maybe in the NBA, it's a little different, because, yeah, best of the best in the in the entire world, when you get to that professional level. But in college, you're still a teacher, and so you're trying to make sure that you teach and teach and teach to help the young men understand and continue to get better.

Graydon Prescott 7:58
Yeah, so after your playing career at the University of Arizona. You coached for some time at Memphis. You were the head coach from 2009 to 2016 and then what really stood out to me, you don't get to interview a lot of these people. You want a Coach of the Year in the ACC in 2017 Yep.

Josh Pastner 8:15
So I was the head coach at the University of Memphis for seven years. One you know, a coach of the year in that conference, yeah. Won multiple we won multiple championships. There then was the head coach at Georgia Tech in the ACC, Coach of the Year in that league. When you look at the list of the ACC with Chesky, Dean Smith, yeah, Roy Williams, yeah, Jim beheim, Rick Patino, Denny Crum, I could go on and on. I mean, the guy, the names are just and to have your name, yeah, in that same breath of geniuses of elite, of the elite of the elite of your profession is beyond cool. Yeah, words can't really describe it. And then we were also won an ACC championship in 2021 so, yeah, so been around, have seen a lot of great basketball, been at two really good programs and hoping to get UNLV back to competing for regular season championships, getting back to the NCAA tournament and making deep runs.

Graydon Prescott 9:26
So UNLV, of course, a lot of the kids here might not know used to be a basketball powerhouse with Jerry Tarkanian, what are you going to do, and how do you want this team to get back to the level of excellence that was expected from this basketball program all those years ago.

Josh Pastner 9:45
Well, great. And first of all, let me just say this football undefeated. Coach Mullen talked to Coach Mullen has been unbelievable, yes. Secondly, Coach Lindy, the women's coach, they've won four straight con. Conference championships. So the athletic department and multiple other programs and coaches have done so well here, so we've got to carry our weight now back. The reason I'm sitting here talking to you great is because you know the programs, it's been a long time since you talk about those Jerry Tarkanian years with the 80s and 90s, it's been a long time for even past that a little bit. It's been a long time since, you know, V basketball has been back in the kind of the forefront and and made runs for championships, right? And so that's why I'm sitting here. So I understand that. I think in order for us to get back to where we all want to get back to. It's not look it's not going to happen overnight. I just can't snap our fingers, because if it was that easy, everybody would do it. So there's going to be a process to it. Right? When that happens? I hope it happens this year, but it might take a year or two to get to where we want to get to. We're going to get there. Yeah, it's just when is. It's more about not if it's when that all being said, the best way for us to get back there is sort of like the chicken or the egg. What? Because everyone says, Coach, if you win, the fans are going to come, the students will show up. So it's like, what comes first, the chicken or the egg, right? My point of that Graydon is, well, we need the students. We need the fans. We especially the students, because the students make this place, yeah, absolutely. We need the students rocking and rolling, yelling like crazy in Thomas and Mac to help us get going, Yeah, to get us over that hump, to be that sixth and seventh man in that home court arena, so we can get those wins right and start generating and catching and pulling our weight back up into this athletic program.

Graydon Prescott 11:44
So this offseason, you've made a very strong use of the transfer portal, bringing in players known for toughness and shooting. How did you approach building this roster and what kind of team identity were you trying to shape?

Josh Pastner 11:56
Well, great. You mentioned it. I mean, to two things I really looked at was shooting and toughness. I use the word alignment a lot like that's important to me, that we've all got to be aligned to me, yeah. And those things are important, shooting and toughness, okay? And now with the challenging part, I mentioned one of the there's two challenging parts. The one of the challenging was, as we mentioned third, you know, the injuries? Yeah, we got to get healthy. I mentioned that, you know, we mentioned that earlier in our conversation. The second challenging part is, we have 13 new players. Everybody's new, yeah, and you're trying to put everyone together and learn each other, learn your system, get your cohesiveness and chemistry down, and then at the same time you're thinking, man, we have so many new guys. You get so behind in what you can put in systematically, yeah? Because you can't just start putting bunch of things in. Not everyone gets the other stuff yet, and then you just become average at a bunch of things, yeah. So I'd rather do less. Is more be great at what we can be great at, and really hang our hats on

Graydon Prescott 13:06
that. Yeah. So one of the favorite things I read was you said you don't want a walking rebels team. You want to push the pace. So what can fans expect from your offensive approach this upcoming

Josh Pastner 13:18
season? Well, we want to be the Running Rebels, and we don't want to be the dribbling rebels. You great. And you don't want to come to the game and see the dribbling rebels or the walk up. You want to see us play with great pace, and the ball moves point five mentality. The ball is moving to me, who's our go to man is the open man. The open man is the go to man. So we've got to move that ball. We've got to cut and play with great pace. Now, being the Running Rebels doesn't mean you had to go play wild basketball and just running and just, you know, playing crazy Running Rebels means that we're going to play with pace. The ball is going to move. We want to play up tempo and and and look, that's what look. Fans want to see wins, whether you whether you score 20 points and you win 20 to 18, they just want you to win the game. But if you ask them, I think the majority of them would prefer to see a win in the game. 8575 Yeah. What I mean, yeah, and getting up and down, but, but a lot of that has to do with the pace that we move at cut, at transition, at at all points.

Graydon Prescott 14:24
And the other side of the basketball, the defensive side, the lesser highlighted side you've been known for structure and identity as a coach, staying in gaps, shrinking the floor, creating transition opportunities from stops. What's the defensive mindset you want your players to bring every single night?

Josh Pastner 14:39
Well, you sound like a coach yourself talking about those words about the defensive mindset, being in the gaps, shrinking the floor. It's pretty cool

Graydon Prescott 14:48
that you said that played basketball for a long time. You

Josh Pastner 14:51
get the deal. Yeah. Now I will disagree with you that on saying that maybe the lesser of it to me personally, I think it's more important. Oh yeah, no, no, but I'm saying i

Graydon Prescott 15:01
The people get Yeah, the fans are they show up for the offense? Yes, right? So I get it No, but defense,

Josh Pastner 15:07
to me, the defense is most important, because if we want to play great offense, the best way to play great offense is to get stopped. Is to get stops. You know the deal, and for the fans. And so you know this, we chart this all the time. We got to get seven three we call them. We got to get seven three stops in a row throughout the course of the game, seven different times. We've got to get three consecutive stops. If we do that, the chances of us winning that game skyrockets to another level.

Graydon Prescott 15:40
So this roster, of course, looks a lot different from your roster last year. What excites you the most about this group's potential?

Josh Pastner 15:46
Well, you're right. Last year's roster, I wasn't the coach here. Was a different coach. And last year's roster, all the players are at different programs. When I came and got this job late in March, everybody was already in the transfer portal. Nobody, everybody was in the portal because of the new rules. You could be in the portal. So this is a brand new team. What excites me is, when we're healthy, we're good enough to win them, we're good enough to compete and try to win the Mountain West Conference. And I'm not just saying like coaches speak, yeah, as you mentioned, you've played, you've been around, everyone said, No, I'm being serious about that. If we're not fully healthy and we're banged up, we're still good. But how do we figure it out? We got to be different. We got to be unique. We got to figure things out and put our thinking caps on and really be good coaches and put our guys in good positions to be successful.

Graydon Prescott 16:40
Absolutely, it's great. And Prescott here on Sports prep live, and I'm sitting down with the new UNLV head coach, Josh Pastner, and we're talking about the upcoming season and what excites him most about his new team. So I did want to ask you, what made you decide to come to UNLV, a program that hasn't had the most basketball success as of late. What made you decide to come to this program and try to reshape the identity of UNLV basketball? Well,

Josh Pastner 17:08
what I would tell you is I was doing television these last two years. I was working for ESPN, NBC, CBS Sports and Turner, great. You know, big time TV networks. And I love doing television. It was out. It was awesome, and it's a great job. And I had other head coaching opportunities presented to me, but they weren't better than the TV jobs I had, yeah, and I know how hard it is to get the positions I were was in television. I know how hard they were to get and I wasn't about to give them up. However, UNLV came calling, and I've been coming to Vegas for over 30 years because of recruiting and, you know, just and being, as you mentioned earlier about being at the University of Arizona, I love the West Coast, yeah, and I was familiar about this school, this program, used to be the Juggernaut, back in the late 80s, early 90s, and juggernaut of college basketball. So when this opportunity came about, I would have done cartwheels, jumping jacks, flips, somersaults, walked all the way to Las Vegas from Atlanta to be able to sit in the chair and be and put that UNLV polo on and to become your head coach. Great, because, you know, I understand that this job just it's a sleeping giant, and it just needed kind of be kind of woken up a little bit like the trees need to be shaken just to re energize the community, and so I'm beyond excited. I love living here. Las Vegas is the capital, the epicenter of the entertainment world, yeah, but it's now also becoming the capital in the epicenter of the sports world, absolutely. And and we got to get back to where we're that thick of that, or we're in the mix of all that. I love being in the desert. I love the mountains. Love everything about it. Great place to get around. Everybody comes through Las Vegas, the airport. I know this might sound silly, but the amount of non stop flights anywhere you want to get to around the country, because everybody loves coming through to Vegas, and then UNLV is literally, that's probably that one of the first things you see getting out of the airport is UNLV, yeah. So the proximity to it all for recruiting and everything else, it's an incredible place.

Graydon Prescott 19:35
So one of the things I've loved about what you've done so far in your short time as the head coach is the alumni involvement, specifically legends like Stacy ogman, who you mentioned earlier, how important is it to you to connect this program's future with his past? Well,

Josh Pastner 19:50
I talked about it at the press conference that I had when I got the job here. How important look, this is not my team. This is not my program. Great. Right? It is the students program, it's the alumni program, it's the city's program, it's the former players program, it's Coach Tarkanian and that group's program. This is not my program. I'm just the gatekeeper for right now to help get it back on track and then move it forward. I'm just sitting in the chair, yeah, and and to get in the right direction. And I said in my press conference, I've got to I've got to get the past connected with the present, and we've all got to be together and then move it forward to the future. And I thought, I don't know if I've done anything well, but maybe one of the things I've done well to this point, and hopefully people say I've done well once we start playing games. Right now, I'm undefeated, so everybody likes me, right? But I've hired Stacy ogman, played here, hired Justin Hawkins, yeah, played here, hired Anthony Marshall, played here. So I try to back up my words that it wasn't just a coaches speak press conference, speak right and that it was actual actions on saying what I said and following through on my on my words, absolutely.

Graydon Prescott 21:11
So you mentioned earlier in the interview how you want to see the fans coming out being the sixth and seventh man. So how do you hope to energize the fan base and get the community to rally behind this team. Well,

Josh Pastner 21:22
I've been everywhere you could imagine. I mean, I have not turned down one media request. I haven't turned down one speaking opportunity. I've done everything I could to anywhere I could be in the city, just to get the message out. And it's been critical. I'm telling you, everywhere I've gone, people want the students back. That's why I've tried to really get I've done so many different things with students, and I think it's so important we've got to get the students back in and that's why being here with you is so important to me. Yeah. So I don't know what else to do, other than to be kind of rolling your sleeves up, putting your working boots on, your hard hat on, and going to work and just getting in the commute, being in the grassroots of it, being in the community, trying to have people to feel emotionally invested in their program, to having a connection with their coach, for them to get that me being a down to earth guy, just to get to know me and kind of knowing what Our what I want the program to be about. And I mean, it's been, it's a 24/7 obsession for me, yeah, to get this program back to where everyone wants to get it back to, yeah. I think one of the besides my other thing about doing well, about the hiring, I think my most impressive stat to this point is I've been going on since I got the job. I barely slept, literally, and I haven't been at a dinner and just fallen face down into the stake, being so exhausted I've been able to get through every dinner, even through I've gone on so little sleep since I've gotten the job. But that's because Vegas is 24/7 your head coach needs to be 24/7

Graydon Prescott 23:00
and I'm telling you, coach, this community is ready to rally behind a coach who's with the community Absolutely. So the season is right around the corner, exhibition games coming up, and then November 4, the season officially starts. So what are your biggest points of emphasis for this program, especially outside of getting healthy, yeah, just on the basketball court. What are your biggest points of emphasis heading into the beginning? Yeah,

Josh Pastner 23:24
I think for us, we got to be offensively. We talked about Pace, pace, PACE being a great cutting team off the ball with great pace. I think point five decision mentality, like that. Ball's got to move. It can't stick. There can be no massaging of the ball, where you're holding it, and no giving the ball a headache where you just pounding and dribbling it. Yeah, the ball's got to move. The open man is the go to man. The go to man's the open man, I think. And playing off of two feet, we drill that all the time. You got to get into the paint and play off of two feet. We've got to be we've got to be great defensively. Yeah, Trent, and it starts in transition defense. We've got to build a wall, shrink the floor. We got to get the basket covered. We got to stop the ball, and then we got to make teams play against us in our half court defense, we will change defenses to go from zone to man, man to zone, and we've got to get seven, three stops in a row, three stops in a row, seven different times throughout the course of the game. And then we got to limit them to one shot, and we got to win the margins. We got to win the possession game, because there's going to be times where we're not shooting the ball. Well, we've still got to find ways to win the game, and to do that, you've got to be great on the offensive glass to get extra possessions. You've got to create turnovers by getting deflections, and then you're not you can't turn over by throwing the ball away. So winning the possession and winning the margin game is a big deal,

Graydon Prescott 24:55
absolutely so for the rebel fans who grew up on the legacy. Of the Running Rebels, right? The 90s teams with Jerry Tarkanian, and the 80s come knocking on the door their battles with Duke. What is your message as you launch this new chapter and this new book of the Running Rebels

Josh Pastner 25:15
program? Well, look, I mean, no one's going to be able to duplicate what Jerry Tarkanian and the success that they had, right? They were winning almost 90% of their games. I mean, it was incredible. I mean, he's the Hall of Famer. He's one of the greatest to ever, ever, ever do it. It might have been the greatest college team ever. Now, we could duplicate that. If everybody wants to, because of the n i l wants to, yeah, write me a check and say, Okay, go get the best players in America. We can duplicate. I got it. I should clarify that if everybody wants to write a big check, we can duplicate. Help out. We can go get the best players, because now it's pay to play. That being said, what I would tell everyone that's been longtime season ticket holders, or, you know, been around for a long time, that, hey, give us a chance. We need you in the building. It's a new it's, it's a, you know, new energy. And we need every this is going to take a community effort to get the program back to where everybody wants to have it back. Might not happen overnight. It's going to take, could take a little time, but we're going to get there. It's not if, it's when. And for us to do that, we've got to do our job on the floor. But in order for us to do our job on the floor, we need the community in Thomas and Mac supporting us. Yeah, that's a big deal.

Graydon Prescott 26:32
Absolutely, you're listening to sports prep live right here on 91.5 KU, N, V, H, d2, radio. We need Thomas and Mac center pack this season. Come out, support the run and rebels, Coach. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Great and

Josh Pastner 26:46
really appreciate it. And when you become big time and famous, don't forget about me. Oh,

Graydon Prescott 26:51
trust me, I won't good. Thank you Coach. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of sports prep live, and we will see you all next week, right back here on 91.5 KU, N, V, H, d2, Radio. I'm Graydon Prescott. Have a great week, everybody. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of sports prep live. I'm Graydon Prescott, and don't forget to catch all of our episodes on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow us on Instagram or Twitter at sports prep live. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai