LAS VEGAS — The Mountain West released its full set of men’s basketball preseason honors Wednesday, and UNLV was represented throughout them.
The Runnin’ Rebels were picked fourth in the conference preseason poll with 125 points. Tyrin Jones and AJ Storr were each named to the 11-player All-Preseason Team, while freshman forward Jackson Kiss was selected as the Mountain West Preseason Freshman of the Year. New Mexico sophomore Jake Hall was named Preseason Player of the Year, and Grand Canyon senior Dylan Darling was selected as Preseason Newcomer of the Year.
New Mexico narrowly finished atop the preseason poll with 179 points and nine first-place votes. Grand Canyon actually received the most first-place votes with 10, but finished one point behind the Lobos with 178. Nevada was picked third with 148 points, followed by UNLV with 125 and Wyoming with 116. Hawai‘i was sixth with 99 points, San Jose State seventh with 63, UC Davis eighth with 62, UTEP ninth with 52 and Air Force 10th with 23.
Jones and Storr give UNLV two players on a preseason team that also includes four from Grand Canyon. Darling, Efe Demirel, Jaden Henley and Makaih Williams represent the Lopes, while Nevada placed Elijah Price and Vaughn Weems on the team. Hall and Uriah Tenette represent New Mexico, Wyoming sophomore Naz Meyer was also selected, and Jones and Storr were the two UNLV choices.
For Jones, the preseason selection follows a freshman season in which he became one of UNLV’s most productive players and one of the Mountain West’s best young frontcourt players. The Las Vegas native averaged 11.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game while leading the conference with 2.2 blocks per game. He shot 59.4 percent from the field, finished with 71 blocks in 32 games and earned honorable mention All-Mountain West honors along with a spot on the conference’s All-Defensive Team.
Jones came to UNLV after playing at Layton Christian Academy in Utah and returns for his sophomore season as one of three letterwinners from Josh Pastner’s first team. Issac Williamson, who averaged 8.6 points as a freshman, is also back after holding a regular rotation role, while redshirt junior guard Jalen Cunningham returns after appearing in limited action last season. Pastner added 11 newcomers around that group during another substantial offseason roster rebuild.
Storr arrives at UNLV with a considerably longer college résumé. The 6-foot-5, 205-pound fifth-year guard from Rockford, Illinois, has already played at St. John’s, Wisconsin, Kansas and Ole Miss. He led Ole Miss in scoring last season at 15.5 points per game while adding 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists. He made 41 3-pointers, collected 32 steals and increased his scoring average to 17.5 points during SEC play, where he ranked 13th in the conference and scored at least 20 points 10 times.
Storr continued that production in the SEC Tournament, averaging 19.5 points over four games as Ole Miss reached the semifinals. He earned All-SEC Tournament Team honors after scoring 78 points during the tournament, the 10th-most in a single SEC Tournament in conference history. He scored a season-high 27 points twice, including an overtime road win at Georgia when he also had eight rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Before Ole Miss, Storr spent the 2024-25 season at Kansas and appeared in 33 games with four starts. He reached double figures eight times, including 19 points in a Big 12 Tournament win over UCF and 15 against Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament. His most productive season before Ole Miss came at Wisconsin in 2023-24, when he led the Badgers with 16.8 points per game, earned second-team All-Big Ten honors and was named to the Big Ten All-Tournament Team.
Storr averaged 22.5 points during Wisconsin’s run to the Big Ten Tournament championship game and scored a career-high 30 against Northwestern in the quarterfinals. He began his college career at St. John’s, where he averaged 8.8 points, started the final 17 games of his freshman season and earned Big East All-Freshman honors along with three Big East Freshman of the Week awards.
Storr also has history in Las Vegas. He attended Bishop Gorman before later playing at AZ Compass Prep and IMG Academy. He was a four-star recruit coming out of high school and averaged 22.8 points during a postgraduate season at IMG, where he earned team MVP honors. Storr has also competed internationally with the Bahamas National Team.
Kiss enters college with a different kind of preseason recognition. The 6-foot-8, 235-pound freshman from Auckland, New Zealand, was named the Mountain West Preseason Freshman of the Year before playing his first college game. He attended Utah Prep Academy after coming to the United States and joined UNLV in May after previously signing with Iowa State.
Kiss was a four-star prospect in the 2026 recruiting class. Rivals ranked him No. 112 nationally and No. 13 among power forwards, while the On3 Industry Ranking listed him No. 125 nationally and No. 14 at his position. UNLV announced him as a four-star recruit when he signed with the program.
Kiss averaged 9.4 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 14 Nike EYBL Scholastic League games during the 2025-26 season and also played for Vegas Elite during the summer. His résumé extends beyond the United States. Kiss represented New Zealand at the FIBA U17 World Cup, averaging 7.9 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.9 assists while helping New Zealand finish fourth. He later averaged 14.5 points and 6.5 rebounds at the 2025 Peach Jam.
The Freshman of the Year honor puts Kiss alongside two much more experienced UNLV teammates in the conference’s preseason recognition. Jones enters his second season after earning Mountain West postseason honors as a freshman. Storr arrives with All-Big Ten, Big Ten All-Tournament, Big East All-Freshman and All-SEC Tournament honors already on his college résumé. Kiss begins his freshman season as the Mountain West media’s choice as the top freshman before the year begins.
The team poll still placed UNLV behind New Mexico, Grand Canyon and Nevada as Pastner enters his second season. New Mexico has the conference’s Preseason Player of the Year in Hall, Grand Canyon has the Preseason Newcomer of the Year in Darling and four All-Preseason selections, while Nevada placed two players on the preseason team and finished 23 points ahead of UNLV in the poll. The Rebels begin the year fourth, but Wednesday’s announcements also gave them two of the conference’s 11 preseason selections and its top freshman honor.
UNLV will get its first public look at the 2026-27 roster Wednesday night against Utah at the Thomas & Mack Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. and the exhibition will stream on MW+. It is the first of three home exhibitions for the Rebels, who will also host BYU on Oct. 24 and Missouri on Oct. 29 before opening the regular season against Northern Arizona on Nov. 3.
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