UNLV made a familiar face a bigger part of its coaching staff Friday, promoting director of strategy and analytics Hayden Sheridan to assistant coach ahead of the 2026-27 season.
Sheridan joined Josh Pastner’s first UNLV staff in April 2025 and spent last season working behind the scenes on opponent scouting, video breakdown, game preparation and analytics. He will now move into a more visible on-court role as the Rebels try to build on the flashes they showed during Pastner’s first year.
The promotion gives Pastner another assistant who already knows his system, his expectations and the way he wants a program to prepare.
That familiarity goes well beyond one season in Las Vegas.
Before coming to UNLV, Sheridan spent nine years at Georgia Tech. He started as a graduate assistant before serving seven seasons as the Yellow Jackets’ director of scouting and video coordinator, a job that placed him in the middle of nearly every part of the program’s preparation.
Sheridan helped coordinate opponent scouting reports, recruiting evaluations, video operations and technology. He also oversaw Georgia Tech’s student managers and spent most of his time there working with Pastner.
When Pastner took the UNLV job in March 2025, Sheridan followed him west.
Now, after a year learning the Mountain West, working with the roster and helping establish the staff’s day-to-day operation, Sheridan gets a larger voice in the process.
As an assistant coach, he is expected to take on more responsibility in practice planning, scouting, recruiting and on-court instruction. He joins associate head coach Scott Garson and assistants Anthony Wilkins and Justin Hawkins on a staff that will enter Year 2 with more familiarity than it had last summer.
For UNLV, that continuity carries some real value.
Pastner’s first season was built around a nearly complete roster overhaul, a new staff and a new way of playing. The Rebels showed they could score and create pressure, but they also struggled to put together the kind of consistent basketball needed to separate themselves in the Mountain West.
UNLV finished 18-17 overall and 11-9 in conference play before reaching the second round of the NIT and losing at Tulsa.
There were enough good moments to make the direction interesting. There were also enough uneven stretches to show how much work remains.
Sheridan’s promotion gives Pastner someone who has already been through that first year, knows which parts worked and understands where the staff believes the Rebels must improve.
Rather than bringing in a new coach who would need time to learn the players, the conference and the program’s structure, Pastner elevated someone who has already worked with him at two schools and has spent nearly a decade inside his system.
That makes this more than a title change.
Sheridan has spent years studying how teams play, where matchups can be attacked and how information should be turned into a usable game plan. He now gets a more direct role in delivering that information to players and helping shape what UNLV looks like on the floor.
For a program entering an important second season under Pastner, that is the appeal.
The Rebels are not starting over with Sheridan. They are moving forward with someone who already knows the plan.
