UNLV circles back to New Mexico State's Marvin Menzies

The UNLV coaching search has turned back to a familiar face in New Mexico State's Marvin Menzies and interviewed him again on Friday. Menzies interviewed for the opening before withdrawing after knowing Chris Beard was named the head coach. Now that Beard is off to Texas Tech, Menzies is back in the picture.

Menzies has coached the Aggies for nine seasons with a good record of 198-111, four straight WAC tournament titles and led New Mexico State has made a fifth championship game this year but fell to Cal State Bakersfield.

He has never finished lower than third in the WAC regular season and either won or shared the conference regular season title three times. He also guided New Mexico State to five NCAA tournament appearances.

Menzies does have ties to UNLV as he coached under former head coach Lon Kruger in the 2004-05 season, and he has familiarity with the Mountain West having coached under Steve Fisher at San Diego State between 1999-2003.

One of his ways that he was so good in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was due to recruiting internationally and he also went to a slower tempo with an emphasis on post play. That combination is a key reason why Menzies has been able to have New Mexico State in the top of the WAC during his tenure.

Other names that have been mentioned in the opening are former Sacramento Kings coach George Karl, former UNLV assistant Ryan Miller and former Wyoming head coach and Rebel assistant Heath Schroyer.

Miller was an assistant under Dave Rice but was not good enough to be the interim head coach, that went to Todd Simon, but now he is in the running. Schroyer has the most head coaching experience of the bunch with five years at Wyoming and two years at Tennessee-Martin where he has had back-to-back 20-plus win seasons.