UNLV searches for leadership, 1st Mountain West road win

The road hasn’t been friendly to UNLV during Mountain West play.

The Rebels are 0-6 away from the Thomas & Mack Center in conference games despite leading in the final five minutes in four games.

Why hasn’t UNLV been able to hold a lead in those games? For UNLV coach T.J. Otzelberger, it boils down to a lack of leadership and no true point guard — things they lost when Marvin Coleman suffered a stress fracture in his right leg and was lost for the season.

“We had become very dependent on Marvin in the leadership capacity,” Otzelberger said. “It’s hard to just tell someone, ‘Be a leader now.’ Not everyone is a leader. There are NBA teams with the best players in the world, and some of them don’t have great leadership.”

The Rebels’ opponents also have been a major part of the problem. They have faced three of the conference’s top five teams on the road in Boise State (13-3, first), Colorado State (11-3, tied for second) and UNR (9-5, fifth).

This weekend figures to be the Rebels’ best chance to end the road drought when they meet San Jose State on Friday and Sunday at the Provident Credit Union Event Center in San Jose, California. Tip off is 6:30 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Sunday.

“We’re late in the game, and we’re in position to win, and there’s not a point guard who knows how the possession needs to go,” Otzelberger said. “Offensively, we’re not getting enough paint touches or to the foul line enough. Defensively, we have more guys that are offensive players, but we need to have that grit and resolve to get stops.”

Otzelberger said sophomore guard Caleb Grill and freshman forward Devin Tillis are starting to assume leadership roles for UNLV (8-11, 5-7).

This weekend’s games will be the first at home in conference play for San Jose State (5-13, 3-11) after stay-at-home orders were lifted.

The Spartans, who haven’t played in nine days after their games last weekend against UNR were postponed, have won three of their past five despite ranking ninth in the conference in scoring (65.4 ppg) and last in scoring defense (80.8). They have the league’s leading scorer in Richard Washington (20.7).

“They have a fast pace of play,” Otzelberger said. “They shoot it quick, and they shoot early 3s. They want to make the game helter-skelter and get you out of your rhythm.”

Contact Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com. Follow @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.