Josh Pastner Sets Defensive Tone As New UNLV Basketball Head Coach

The UNLV Rebels men's basketball team moved on from their former head coach, Kevin Kruger, this offseason and made a huge splash when they went out and hired Josh Pastner. Pastner immediately got started and began building the roster through the transfer portal. He added players who play the game of basketball the way he wants them to play. One of the key things he has emphasized to his team this offseason is that he wants to see defense and effort before anything else. That is what he believes is the key to winning games. 

Recently, Pastner sat down with the Las Vegas Review-Journal during a film study session and spoke about how important defense is:

“I’m watching right now to see, are we in the right positioning on the floor? The guy guarding the ball determines the toughness of your team,” Pastner says. “You’ve got to be close enough where you can touch his chest... All five guys guard the basketball. The floor has to be shrunk. The person with the ball has to see the floor in front of them and see a crowd. And then when the ball is skipped or moved, that’s when we start going in on multiple effort plays... Every possession is precious. This is my 15th year as a head coach. That’s why, internally, it is hard for me. That’s why I stress. Because I’m like, how? ‘Crack em’ and get dunked on. Is this a crack or what is this? I don’t know. Just gotta crack them. You’ve gotta go crack their legs. Your butt has to hit their thighs... I remember saying on this play, ‘Are you worried about getting dunked on? You better be getting dunked on there. If you’re worried about being cool, casual or cute, it won’t work for me, It will get you beat. Less is more, but when we win games …"

He then implied that soon his team will have trophies as a result of the winning they will be doing. This is the guy that this team hired to coach the Rebels for this reason. His passion for the game and drive to win are why they gave him that big contract. Pastner is already off to a great start both in the community and in building the roster. We fully expect that to start resulting in wins on the court sooner rather than later.