GAME NOTES: The 2014-15 season gets underway in the desert on Friday night, as the UNLV Runnin' Rebels entertain the Morehead State Eagles as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.

The Eagles, members of the Ohio Valley Conference, are coming off a campaign in which they posted a 20-14 record overall and were 10-6 in league play, all despite dealing with significant injuries to key performers. Head coach Sean Woods was able to not only get MSU to the 20-win plateau for just the sixth time in school history, but their appearance in the College Basketball Invitational marked just the ninth postseason bid for the squad.

Meanwhile, 20-win seasons are nothing new for a team like UNLV. In fact, just barely getting by with that many victories is seen as a disappointment in Sin City, which is exactly what happened last season when the squad was only 20-13.

Now challenged by the likes of New Mexico and San Diego State in the Mountain West Conference, the Rebels closed out the 2013-14 regular season with back- to-back defeats and lost four of six before taking out Wyoming (71-67) in the MWC Tournament and losing to the Aztecs (59-51) in a later round of the event. Just 6-5 in true road games, UNLV was 10-8 in conference play under Dave Rice.

As far as an all-time series between these squads is concerned, this is actually the first all-time meeting.

The good news for the Eagles is that, not only do they bring back nine players from last season's roster, but four of them were starters. Tops among the returnees is Angelo Warner who led the program in scoring with 17.5 ppg. But more than just a scorer, Warner made sure to have his hand in many plays that didn't involve his own point production, placing second on the unit in assists (103) and first in steals (67) over the course of 34 starts.

Brent Arrington comes back after posting 11.8 ppg, the only other active player in double figures, although his physical style of play often left him on the sidelines and unable to contribute during key situations. The hope this season is that Arrington will be able to continue his scoring production, but at the same time refrain from being disqualified in 10 outings.

Kareem Story, who averaged 6.8 ppg, will again be the facilitator on offense for the Eagles after delivering a team-best 162 assists, and hopefully he'll make better decisions from 3-point range where he was only 25.9 percent accurate for a group that finished at 29.9 percent on the outside.

Not only is there not a single UNLV starter coming back for the 2014-15 campaign, there are no players who scored even as much as seven points per game on the roster. Senior guard Jelan Kendrick was good for 6.3 ppg and 2.4 rpg, but he is someone who had the potential to hurt the team as much as help it due to his 54.4 percent accuracy at the free-throw line.

Considered players to watch for the Rebels, sophomore forward Christian Wood will now have plenty of room and opportunity to spread his wings and claim valuable real estate in the paint. At 6-foot-11, he started two games as a freshman and scored in double figures a total of three times as he played mostly as a backup to Roscoe Smith and Khem Birch.

Needing to reach a bit deeper to find another player to keep an eye on, UNLV lists freshman guard Rashad Vaughn as one of those individuals after he averaged 19.9 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game as a senior at Findlay Prep.

With experience on their side the Eagles should be more than competitive in this meeting. Considering UNLV is almost having to rebuild from scratch, don't be surprised to see the visitors score a minor upset in a hostile environment.