LAS VEGAS — UNLV’s 2026-27 basketball schedule is being framed around its difficulty. Kansas, Stanford, San Diego State and SMU are all there, Players Era could add multiple games against teams coming off postseason runs, and Josh Pastner will have three high-major exhibitions before the regular season begins.
It is a difficult schedule. It also is not much different from what UNLV has been doing for years.
The Runnin’ Rebels could face as many as eight teams that played in the postseason last season a combined 12 times, including four NCAA Tournament teams. For a program that has not played in the NCAA Tournament since 2013, those games give UNLV more chances to build the type of résumé it would need to become part of the at-large conversation in March.
But one year ago, UNLV announced a nonconference schedule with seven postseason teams, also including four NCAA Tournament teams. Seven of the 10 Division I nonconference opponents had finished the previous season inside the top 100 of the NET rankings.
The difference between eight potential postseason opponents this year and seven last year is not some dramatic shift in scheduling philosophy.
Pastner called last year’s nonconference schedule a chance to challenge his team before Mountain West play. This year, he again described the schedule as “very challenging” and said that was exactly what UNLV wanted.
“We have put together a very challenging schedule with a lot of quality teams, and that’s exactly what we want for our program,” Pastner said when this year’s schedule was announced. “Our non-conference slate will test us in a number of different ways and prepare us for the new-look Mountain West that we know will be extremely competitive.”
The message is almost the same because the approach is almost the same.
Last season, UNLV played at Memphis and Stanford and faced Maryland, Alabama and Rutgers at Players Era. The Rebels beat Memphis 92-78 and Stanford 75-74, giving Pastner two of the type of road wins that can help a résumé. They also went 0-3 at Players Era, losing 74-67 to Maryland, 115-76 to No. 8 Alabama and 80-65 to Rutgers.
There were other problems. UNLV lost its season opener at home to UT Martin, gave up 102 points in a home loss to Montana and lost to Tennessee State at Lee’s Family Forum. The Rebels eventually finished 18-17 and reached the second round of the NIT.
UNLV had opportunities. It also showed why simply having those games on the schedule does not solve the larger problem.
Kansas can help this season. So can whatever comes after Kansas at Players Era. A win at San Diego State could eventually carry value. SMU gives UNLV another opponent coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance, and Stanford won 20 games last season.
None of that means much if UNLV does not win enough of those games or gives the value back somewhere else.
That has been the pattern.
Kevin Kruger’s 2024-25 team had Memphis at the Thomas & Mack Center, Mississippi State and Northwestern at the Arizona Tip-Off and true road games at Creighton and Dayton. UNLV called that nonconference schedule “extremely challenging” when it was announced and noted that four opponents were coming off postseason appearances.
UNLV lost all five of those games. Memphis won 80-74. No. 25 Mississippi State beat the Rebels 80-58, and Northwestern won 66-61 the next day. UNLV then lost 83-65 at Creighton before going to No. 22 Dayton and losing 66-65.
The schedule created chances for meaningful wins. UNLV did not get them.
The year before produced a different version of the same lesson. UNLV’s 2023-24 schedule included Florida State and Richmond at the Sunshine Slam, a scheduled road game at Dayton, No. 8 Creighton in Henderson and Saint Mary’s in Phoenix. Kruger again called the schedule “extremely challenging.”
UNLV lost both games at the Sunshine Slam and later lost to Loyola Marymount in Henderson. The Dayton game was canceled following the Dec. 6, 2023, shooting on UNLV’s campus. Then the Rebels delivered one of the program’s best nonconference wins in years, beating No. 8 Creighton 79-64 before taking Saint Mary’s to double overtime three days later. UNLV lost 69-67.
That team won 21 games and reached the NIT quarterfinals, ending an 11-year postseason drought. It still did not get back to the NCAA Tournament.
The 2022-23 season makes the point even better.
UNLV opened 11-0. The Rebels beat No. 21 Dayton 60-52 at the Thomas & Mack Center, won both games at the SoCal Challenge and beat Washington State 74-70 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Their first loss did not come until San Francisco won 75-73 on Dec. 17.
UNLV entered Mountain West play 11-1.
That team still did not reach the postseason.
The Rebels went 7-11 in conference play and finished 19-13. The schedule was not the problem. The Mountain West season was.
Kruger’s first season followed the same general philosophy. UNLV said its 2021-22 nonconference schedule could feature as many as five teams coming off postseason appearances, with UCLA and Michigan among the Las Vegas games and true road trips to SMU and San Francisco. Kruger called it “very challenging” and said it would prepare UNLV for the Mountain West.
The names change. The events change. Realignment changes where some of the games fall. The basic approach has not changed much.
UNLV has consistently used Las Vegas events to get access to major programs, added a couple of true road games and surrounded those opportunities with home games it expects to win. Players Era is the newest and biggest version of that setup.
This year, Kansas is guaranteed in the opening round. The second game will be Auburn or West Virginia, and UNLV’s third opponent will come from Houston, Rutgers, Florida or Notre Dame. Kansas reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, Houston reached the Sweet 16, Florida won the SEC regular-season title, West Virginia won the College Basketball Crown and Auburn won the NIT.
That is a strong field, but it follows a year in which UNLV went to the same event and played Maryland, No. 8 Alabama and Rutgers in three games.
The 2026 version could produce better opponents, better wins or a much stronger résumé. Simply having access to those games is not new.
There is also no guarantee in August that those games will carry the same value in March. The eight-postseason-team number is based on what those programs did last season, not what they will become in 2026-27. Kansas, San Diego State, Stanford, SMU and the rest of the schedule will ultimately be judged by what they do this season. A game that looks significant now can lose value by March, while another opponent can become much better than expected.
The same is true of the road schedule. UNLV goes to San Francisco and San Diego State this season. Last year it went to Memphis and Stanford. In 2024-25, the true road games were Creighton and Dayton. Kruger’s first team traveled to SMU and San Francisco.
San Diego State does change the equation slightly because realignment has taken a familiar Mountain West matchup and moved it into December. The Aztecs went 22-11 last season before leaving for the Pac-12, and UNLV will still travel to Viejas Arena on Dec. 5. Now the game becomes part of UNLV’s nonconference résumé instead of the Mountain West standings.
Realignment has created another difference. The new 10-team Mountain West will use an 18-game schedule, with UNLV playing each of the other nine teams home and away. That leaves the Rebels with 15 regular-season nonconference games, giving Pastner more room to shape the résumé outside the league than UNLV had under a larger conference schedule.
The three exhibitions are probably the biggest actual departure from what UNLV has done recently.
Utah comes to the Thomas & Mack Center on Oct. 7, followed by BYU on Oct. 24 and Missouri on Oct. 29. Last year, UNLV played an exhibition at Washington and another at home against Lincoln University.
Those three games will not affect the NET or UNLV’s NCAA Tournament résumé, but they give a team with 10 newcomers three high-major opponents before Northern Arizona arrives for the regular-season opener. That is different.
The postseason environment is changing too.
The NCAA Tournament expands from 68 to 76 teams in 2027. The new Opening Round will include the 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams before the tournament moves into the traditional 64-team bracket.
The larger field gives teams around the bubble more available spots, and the NCAA has also adjusted one of the metrics used to evaluate them. The Wins Above Bubble baseline is moving from the No. 45 team in the NET to No. 55. WAB uses NET data to estimate how an average bubble team would be expected to perform against a team’s schedule, with the quality of the opponent and game location affecting that calculation.
That gives more weight to the real question surrounding Pastner’s schedule.
UNLV has games that can help. Kansas can help. San Diego State on the road can help. Players Era gives the Rebels multiple chances against programs that could be sitting high in the NET by March.
But UNLV has had chances before.
In 2022-23, the Rebels entered conference play 11-1 and still missed the postseason. In 2023-24, they beat No. 8 Creighton and still ended up in the NIT. In 2024-25, they had five notable nonconference opportunities against Memphis, Mississippi State, Northwestern, Creighton and Dayton and lost all five. Last season, they won at Memphis and Stanford but went winless at Players Era and dropped several other nonconference games.
That is the history Pastner is really trying to change.
UNLV has not lacked recognizable opponents. It has not lacked neutral-site events or chances to play teams with NCAA Tournament-level résumés. What it has lacked is a complete résumé of its own.
The difference will come if UNLV finally wins enough of the games that can help, avoids the losses that give those wins back and carries it into Mountain West play.
That, not the names printed on the schedule in August, is what could finally change where UNLV is playing in March.
