Penny Hardaway’s Tigers return to FedExForum Sunday afternoon for their second home game of the season. Memphis, which enters the game 1-1, will host UNLV and former head coach Josh Pasner.
Pastner coached the Tigers for seven seasons and recorded a 167-73 record before accepting the head coach position at Georgia Tech. Paster spent seven seasons as the head coach of the Yellow Jackets, and he’s worked as an analyst for the last two years before taking over with the Runnin’ Rebels.
With only one player returning from last year’s roster, Pastner had a lot of work to do over the offseason, bringing in 13 newcomers. It’s been a rocky start to the season for UNLV, and they travel to the Bluff City with a 1-2 record, including home losses against UT Martin and Montana.
The Runnin’ Rebels have averaged 91.7 points per game through the first three games of the season, and they’ve shot 51.1 percent from the field but only 29.6 percent from deep. While they’ve scored a lot of points, their issues have been defensive, and opposing teams are averaging 85.7 points.
While they don’t shoot the three-ball well, they also don’t take a lot, and they rank No. 16 among D1 teams in two-point percentage, shooting 65.4 percent inside the arc. The Runnin’ Rebels also get to the free-throw line in bunches, and they’re averaging 34 attempts per game.
Four players are averaging more than 10 points per game, and Illinois transfer Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn leads the team in scoring, averaging 19 points per game. The junior guard leads the team with five made threes, but he’s only shooting 23.8 percent from deep.
Former four-star Naas Cunningham has given UNLV a nice spark off the bench, and he’s averaging 15 points and 2.7 assists per game. The redshirt freshman has the talent to take over a game with his shot-making ability, and he showed it earlier this year with 25 points in 30 minutes in the only win of the season against Chattanooga.
In the frontcourt, UNLV doesn’t have a ton of size, and they’ve rolled with a pair of 6-foot-8 forwards in the starting five through the first three games. Pastner added 7-foot Arizona transfer Emmanuel Stephen out of the transfer portal, but he’s currently out with an injury.
Despite the lack of size, the Runnin’ Rebels have a plus-seven rebounding margin, but they haven’t faced a team with the size Memphis has down low.
The Tigers will look to improve to 2-1 on the young season and spoil Pastner’s return to FedExForum. Following Sunday’s game, Memphis will have nearly a week off before it heads to the Bahamas for the 2025 Baha Mar Hoops Championship next Friday and Saturday.