Loss of Beas Hamga not a big one for Rebels

Rumors of the transfer of 7-foot center Beas Hamga have been hot and heavy recently on both rebelnation.net and Rebel-Net on Rivals.com. So it was not a major surprise on Friday morning when UNLV granted the 7-foot freshman center his release from the program.

What was a major surprise is that Hamga was just the third best big man on UNLV’s depth chart and had played a grand total of 26 minutes in just five game appearances for the Rebels.

Hamga was rated the nation’s No. 26 overall prospect in the Class of 2007 by Rivals.com and the fifth best center in the country ahead of folks like current Kansas star Cole Aldrich. He was ranked just three spots behind a forward from Oklahoma named Blake Griffin, considered the potential first pick of the 2009 NBA Draft. In the interest of full disclosure, Scout.com, which runs the rebelnation.net site run by Rebel Nation, did not rank Hamga in its Top 100 but had him No. 22 among center prospects.

After watching him play and practice, even that might be too high.

Hamga is a good shot-blocker with a 9-foot-5 wingspan and pretty good timing. But it was painful to watch him a); Try and catch a ball in the post, and b). try and do something with it if/when he caught it. He also lacked strength to defend players in the post.

In a word, he’s a project, even after sitting out a year at UNLV. It’s funny but I can remember when Hamga signed with UNLV that there were people afraid he’d actually bolt for the NBA after a year.

Maybe Hamga will wind up in the NBA one day … the old saying is you can’t coach height … but he better be prepared to work awfully hard in the weight room and perfecting his offensive game if he wants to have a chance. In that regard, he won’t find a better strength coach than UNLV’s Jason Kabo or a better coaching staff that develops big man talent (ask Lou Amundson and Joel Anthony).

He also better get a whole lot tougher. The one memory that immediately comes to mind when I think of Beas is a play I saw in practice prior to UNLV’s summer trip to Australia last June.

UNLV’s 40-year-old assistant coach Steve Henson, filling in because the Rebels were shorthanded that day, set a routine screen by the free throw line that Hamga, a foot taller and probably 30 pounds heavier, ran into. Hamga fell to the ground like he had been shot and laid there for a few moments before finally getting up.

I looked at a colleague of mine and we both smiled. “I don’t think we need to worry about Beas heading to the NBA soon,” I said with a chuckle.

One other word came to both of our lips. Lets just say it starts with a “w” and rhymes with “chimp.”

“We wish Beas the best,” UNLV coach Lon Kruger said today. “His attitude and work ethic have been outstanding and because of that, we think that he will develop into a very good player.”

Maybe. Personally, I think the Rebels are better off getting that scholarship back.

Right now Beas goes to the top of the list as perhaps the most overrated player in recent UNLV basketball history.