Las Vegas: Basketball Town
LAS VEGAS — Asked about the NCAA Tournament’s first-ever venture into Las Vegas on Wednesday, UCLA head coach Mick Cronin smirked.
“Long overdue,” he said.
Basketball has a long and storied tradition in Las Vegas that truly began to manifest a half-century or so ago. In the 1970s, Jerry Tarkanian’s departure from Long Beach State up the 15 to UNLV transformed both Vegas and college basketball as a whole.
The Runnin’ Rebels’ four Final Four appearances from 1977 through 1991 and national championship in 1990 ushered in a new era of basketball as a cultural touchstone. Before Michigan’s Fab Five, UNLV introduced the new wave in fashion and style, and did so with a high-flying brand of basketball befitting their swagger.
In other words, if Georgetown’s Hoya Paranoia era of the 1980s with unflinching, physical basketball reflected the East Coast’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, which with groups like Public Enemy1 was gritty, UNLV was reflective of the West Coast’s funk-inspired musical boom through NWA members Eazy-E, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube.
Tarkanian era UNLV also reflected Old Las Vegas. To some, that invokes images of mobbed-up underworld dwellers chain-smoking in dimly lit steakhouses — imagery that, as I noted in a column on college basketball’s sordid history with gambling from last spring, gained new relevance through the highly dramatized depiction of Tarkanian in HBO’s Winning Time.
And while Winning Time took artistic license with reality, there was an authenticity to UNLV basketball of the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, coinciding with the “Lefty” Rosenthal, Casino era of Las Vegas that made the Runnin’ Rebels special.
When I talked to sharp-shooting guard Freddie Banks of the 1987 Final Four UNLV team for this dive into the history of the 3-pointer, he reminisced on those days when old-school Vegas celebrities sat courtside for Runnin’ Rebs games and every seat at the Thomas & Mack Center was full.
UNLV is far-removed from those glory days, much the same way the Old Las Vegas gave way to multibillion-dollar conglomerates taking over The Strip. But Las Vegas never lost its love for basketball.
During the city’s effort in the 1990s to attract families, Las Vegas became the world’s hub for high-school basketball recruiting. Countless hoop dreams begin in this city.
“Everyone here I think has gone to Vegas at one point in their life for basketball,” said UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. “It is really an underrated mecca when it comes to youth basketball and just basketball as a whole. It's a very underrated city.”
AAU showcases have launched countless college players, and the local schools have produced no shortage of standouts. One such Vegas native earned a place in March Madness lore to close the first-ever night of NCAA Tournaments in Sin City, as Gonzaga's — and nearby Liberty High School’s — Julian Strawther sank the game-winning 3-pointer to beat UCLA.
The NCAA’s refusal to host postseason events in Nevada for decades prior would have prevented such an unforgettable homecoming for countless players. Instead, Strawther shined as a hometown hero — even though it meant having to silence his phone.
An influx of conference tournaments into Las Vegas throughout the 2000s likely helped thaw the NCAA’s position. The Mountain West called Vegas its tournament home from its inception until a few, poorly received attempts to move to Denver.
Once the MW returned to Thomas & Mack Center, the West Coast followed with a move from rotating campus sites to the Orleans Arena. The Orleans also hosts the Western Athletic Conference later during Championship Week.
Little about Larry Scott’s tenure as Pac-12 Conference commissioner went according to plan, but moving the league tournament from Los Angeles — where the former Staples Arena was more like Crypt-o dot com2 Arena — to Las Vegas is an undeniable winner.
And if the conferences weren’t wholly responsible for nudging the NCAA away from an understandable, albeit archaic mandate, the Supreme Court aopening sports wagering beyond Nevada forced the governing body’s hand.
“Once state legislators started passing and allowing FanDuel and DraftKings and all that stuff, then it was okay,” Cronin said.
Now, FanDuel and DraftKings have oversaturated advertising spaces, so it’s understandable if seeing those names makes one bristle. But if there’s a positive to the two digital sportsbooks’ ubiquity, it’s the role they played in opening up a city with a palpable buzz for basketball to the most important games in the sport.
Cronin notes you can also thank the Raiders.
“Somebody's always got to make a move first,” he said. “The NFL made the move here first to Vegas. I think that probably opened it up.”
The Raiders’ move from Oakland wasn’t the first; the NHL’s expansion with the Vegas Golden Knights is responsible for the beautiful venue on the heart of The Strip that hosted the West Regional. But with the Raiders, Las Vegas gained the endorsement of the preeminent league in America — and the development of Allegiant Stadium provided a venue capable of and planned for hosting the Final Four.
Las Vegas’ inaugural Final Four is slated for 2028.
Meanwhile, the only question of whether an NBA franchise will call Vegas home seems to be if it debuts before or after that ‘28 Final Four.
Since the misguided and ill-fated efforts of the Maloof Bros. to move the Sacramento Kings to Las Vegas were undercut by a disastrous All-Star weekend in 2007, the Association has successfully regrouped in its efforts to gain a foothold here.
NBA Summer League has grown from modest roots in the early 2000s, played in gymnasiums in the Southeast, into a bona fide destination for basketball junkies who plan July pilgrimages to Thomas & Mack Center. The local popularity of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces has also provided something of a blueprint for building a successful pro basketball franchise in the city, and a new team based in Vegas when the NBA next expands looks inevitable.
Las Vegas loves basketball. Basketball finally reciprocating may be “long overdue,” but later is always better than never.
Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. has said in interviews that he originally formed a group called The Georgetown Gangsters in an homage to Patrick Ewing and John Thompson’s Hoyas teams.
The home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings is now sponsored by Crypto dot com, a hub for the definitely not money laundering world of cryptocurrency. If we’re being frank, cryptocurrency feels exponentially more shady to be in business with than gambling.
Vegas has always been a fascinating city to me for precisely a lot of what you touched on. I do wonder moving forward how Vegas will grow from here. And I do wonder if at some point, it gets oversaturated. Either way, it's a fascinating time.