UNLV’s glory days still resonate for those who witnessed them

It has been 30 years since UNLV defeated Duke to win the NCAA men’s basketball championship in Denver — and 29 years since an even more dominant Rebels team lost to Duke in the national semifinals in Indianapolis.

Kaleidoscopic images of those UNLV teams have gently faded in the way that cherished photographs and memories do. But the feelings they engendered still resonates.

Do you recall the joy when the Golden Knights advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season after the madman with the gun brought the city to its collective knee? That probably came closest to approaching the delirium and sense of pride generated by those Rebels teams.

The Mountain Ridge Little League side that made a historic run at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was definitely in the ballpark, too.

But Las Vegas seemed more quaint 30 years ago. The way the Rebels brought it together, it almost felt like the fictional town of Hickory, Indiana, during the mythical 1952 state championship season in “Hoosiers.” Only with a marquee full of neon substituting for a grain silo, fewer crewcuts and a tad more swagger.

You could make the analogy that Jerry Tarkanian’s Rebels were to Las Vegas what the Beatles were to America. They made the 260,561 who lived here scream “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, Greg Anthony, Anderson Hunt — these were names that practically leaped off the box scores. And don’t forget David Butler, George Ackles, Moses Scurry and the supporting casts.

It was a team that reflected the image of Las Vegas: Bold. Brash. Bodacious. Sometimes the Rebels made up the rules as they went along. They had a chip on their collective shoulder and dared you to knock it off.

Bellmen and bartenders could relate.

Cocktail waitresses and chambermaids could relate.

Siegfried & Roy could relate. (One year, they and their white tigers even posed for the cover of the basketball media guide.)

“It was magic,” said Joyce Aschenbrenner, UNLV’s sports information director during the championship season. “It was like we belonged to the city.”

Watching on high

I did not cover the UNLV basketball team during its championship season. I literally watched it from afar.

In those days, the man who drew the short straw (aka the new guy) was assigned to the UNLV football beat. Back in the Rebels’ heyday, when the Thomas & Mack Center still had the smell of a new arena, the football writers sat in Section 221.

We did not sit alone. Social distancing was a foreign concept at UNLV games in those days. Even the seats in the nosebleed sections were filled.

For Iowa. For Arkansas. For North Carolina State.

For Oklahoma State and Arizona and Louisville.

Even for the dunkfests against UC-Irvine and Pacific, when the Rebel faithful would call for Dave Rice to get into the game a generation before he would become UNLV’s coach.

Aschenbrenner recalls Joe Theismann, the former Washington Redskins’ quarterback, calling for tickets when he was married to Cathy Lee Crosby and she was appearing at Caesars Palace. She found a little space for Theismann next to the guy who supervises the referees.

“I’ll never forget he was so grateful,” she said.

Documenting greatness

Years later, HBO tried to recapture the euphoria — and tumult, for with those Rebels and the NCAA’s investigative fallout, there was always tumult — in a riveting 60-minute documentary.

It concluded with a series of voiceovers as sentimental music played over a video montage of Las Vegas and its beloved basketball team.

They were familiar voices.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, conceding his Blue Devils, as good as they were, could have played the 1990 Rebels 20 times and not beaten them once. Jimmy Kimmel, the late night talk show host who grew up in Las Vegas, professing his love and affection for those teams. Tark, near tears, saying he wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything.

The last voice was that of native son Greg Anthony.

“Ultimately they can never take away what we accomplished,” said the backbone — and broken jawbone, for who can forget that nasty spill he took against Fresno State? — of those unforgettable teams. Of that unforgettable time.

“That city took tremendous pride in that program. And still does. To this day.”

The video montage faded to black. The sentimental music struck a final melancholy chord.

It has been 30 years.

It still resonates.