L.J. has bone to pick, rightfully so

Larry Johnson is mad at UNLV again.

"I don't like those Arizona people in the administration, and they don't like me," he said.

Johnson was talking about not receiving a phone call about the UNLV basketball coaching vacancy during the five minutes there was one, if one is of the opinion athletic director Jim Livengood's nationwide job search was a dog-and-pony show tantamount to the one at Westminster Kennel Club, and that Dave Rice was named best in show five minutes after Lon Kruger felt the Oklahoma wind come sweepin' down the plain.

Livengood was Arizona's athletic director before he was UNLV's athletic director.

Livengood has done a nice job cobbling together an athletic budget in difficult times and, also to his credit, Dave Rice -- like Johnson, a member of UNLV's 1990 national championship team, albeit with a slightly less celebrated role -- sure seems like a good choice to be the Rebels' coach.

Like Johnson, Rice never has been a head coach. Unlike Johnson, he has been an assistant for years. He had a seat on Dave Rose's bench at Brigham Young, and on Bill Bayno's here, though one shouldn't hold that Bayno thing against him.

Dave Rice knows Jimmer. Most people around here believe he will lead UNLV back to the Promised Land, or as close as the Rebels can get to it without breaking NCAA rules in recruiting Shabazz Muhammad. Even people not from around here, such as Dick Vitale, are high on Rice, which explains a lot, because you knew Dickie V. had to be high on something.

So to reiterate, I take no issue with Dave Rice being named Rebels coach.

I do have a slight problem with Larry Johnson not receiving so much as a cursory phone call from those Arizona people, to use his terminology.

This would be like Neil Armstrong not getting a phone call from NASA or James Bond not getting a phone call from Her Majesty's Secret Service or Matt "Guitar" Murphy of the Blues Brothers not getting a phone call from Jake and Elwood when they were putting the band back together. It would be like Ernie Banks not getting a phone call from the Cubs.

This is politics. This is what athletic directors are supposed to be good at -- in addition to playing free golf.

It didn't have to be a phone call to discuss the head coaching job with Johnson, after he told others he'd be a good choice. A phone call to thank him for his interest -- and for that championship banner that hangs from the Thomas & Mack Center rafters -- would have sufficed.

If Livengood was too consumed by dogs and ponies and lining up that Ernie Kent interview, he could have had his assistant Jerry Koloskie make the call. Koloskie is good at making tough phone calls. When Livengood's predecessor, Mike Hamrick, was too busy to call Regina Miller to tell her she was fired as UNLV women's basketball coach, he had Koloskie do it.

Somebody in the athletic administration could have pointed out to L.J., in a Ward Cleaver sort of way, that he has zero experience as a basketball coach. Perhaps Johnson could have been offered a job as an assistant, to acquire some experience, or, if he was truly serious about wanting to help out in his spare time, even a gig as a graduate assistant, considering he has a bachelor's degree in social science studies from UNLV. (Then, should Stacey Augmon return to the NBA after the labor dispute, he could move up.)

L.J. went back to school in 2007. UNLV made a big deal of it when he participated in the graduation ceremony. Phone calls certainly were made then. Come out and see Larry Johnson graduate. Bring your notebook, so when Larry says nice things about UNLV, about the bridge being built between the basketball program's bittersweet past under Jerry Tarkanian and its unfulfilled future under Kruger (who said he wasn't leaving UNLV for Minnesota, or anywhere else), you can write it all it down. Larry did say nice things. We did write them all down.

So when I heard he blew up that bridge in an interview with Gaming Today, I had to read it for myself.

Darlene, the Page 3 girl who was pictured detailing a car wearing only her bikini bottom and silver high heels, proved to be a distraction. But eventually I found Mark Mayer's piece on Johnson, in which arguably the greatest of all the Rebels credits Kruger for bringing peace to UNLV's basketball valley, and blames "those Arizona people" for disturbing it.

"Kruger gained my respect for what he was doing and the way he was trying to bring back previous Rebels, who had a bitter taste in their mouth with the university for how the Tark situation was handled," Johnson said. "Lon did an excellent job extending the olive branch. I was attending more games, going to alumni banquets and all the alumni golf tournaments. I was getting back involved."

Now he's not. Now UNLV is putting the band back together, and Grandmama has his support hose in a bunch.

It didn't have to be that way.

If Ernie Kent received an interview, Larry Johnson should have received a phone call.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.