Lon Kruger joins the Twitter crowd

Add UNLV head basketball coach Lon Kruger to the millions who are now using the social network called Twitter. And with the dog days of summer upon us — my car thermometer read 119 degrees when I left Kruger’s office at the Thomas & Mack Center this afternoon — the timing couldn’t be better.

I mean, what else is there to do on a brutally hot July day than to keep track of the daily activities of Las Vegas’ favorite head coach on your computer or cell phone?

If you were one of Kruger’s followers today (www.twitter.com/LonKruger), you would have learned that Lon had spent part of his morning chatting with New Jersey Nets GM Kiki Vandeweghe, who is in town for the NBA Summer League currently taking place at the Cox Pavilion. Or you might have learned that Kruger had spent Saturday on the road with assistant coach Lew Hill evaluating recruits.

Kruger also has “tweets” about former players like Wink Adams and son Kevin, who is busy playing (and doing pretty good) for the Utah Jazz in the NBA summer league in Orlando, as well as upcoming basketball events.

Kruger rolled out his new Twitter site last Thursday exactly 100 days before the start of October basketball practice. As of this afternoon, he already had put up 18 items and had 252 official followers getting his content. I’m guessing you’ll be able to put a zero at the end of that last figure in another month or two.

“It’s the way young people are communicating,” the 56-year-old Kruger said. “I say young people when it relates to recruiting. It’s important that they go on and get information as it relates to what is happening here. It’s a way also to promote other things that are good that are happening in the community. It’s a fun thing to do.”

Recruitaholics will be disappointed, however, if they check in hoping to find out what players the Rebels are recruiting or watching the next couple of weeks during the busy July evaluation period. It would be an NCAA violation for Kruger to comment about a prospective student-athlete on his Twitter page just like it would be if he were to comment to a newspaper reporter about it.

“Even in the item about recruiting with Lew Hill I didn’t say where we were,” Kruger said. “Even that could be a gray area. We can’t say who we are watching. We’ve got to be careful that way with anything that might be questionable with the (NCAA) rules.”

Still, it’s a fun way to beat the heat and keep up to date on the Runnin’ Rebels at the same time.

Also, check out our new Rebel Nation site on Twitter which started up this morning. It can be found at www.Twitter.com/UNLVRebelNation.