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Another chapter has been added to the relatively new non-conference rival with an unlikely foe for the UNLV Lady Rebels.
For the fifth straight year, UNLV met Northern Arizona and earned a victory for the third consecutive matchup. The Lady Rebels claimed the win, 85-71, Thursday, Nov. 7 from the Thomas & Mack Center.
“Playing at 11 a.m. is really adversity in itself,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “Weird things can happen when you play at this time, especially when you have a bunch of screaming kids who are screaming for both teams.”
Now, the program rocks a 2-0 record to start the new year after playing inside the T&M Center for the first time since capturing its third straight Mountain West Championship. Over the last four seasons, La Rocque is 19-0 inside the Thomas & Mack Center including the Mountain West Championships.
”We do like playing in there — we do know that,” she said. “Typically, we even shoot it a little bit better so I think we’re saving it which is fine. There’s good mojo in there.”
Education Day brings an end to a two-game homestand for UNLV. It will take a short trip to another desert for its next contest.
It will meet Arizona Tuesday, Nov. 12 with tip-off scheduled for 5 p.m. The Wildcats are responsible for bouncing the Lady Rebels from the NCAA Tournament in the first of their three-year tourney berth run. Since then UNLV has claimed the only meeting by 19.
”Arizona is the first of a few that we have on the schedule where we’re maybe not picked to win to be honest,” La Rocque said. “Especially on the road but we’re excited for that. Those are the situations and the adversity that I have to continue to put our team in because I think those are the games that we’ll come back to in postseason play when that time comes.”
This time around, the Lady Rebels didn’t need a halftime speech in order to begin pulling away in this one. After seven ties in the first 11 minutes, the team went on a 10-0 run in 78 seconds to start the quarter.
Immediately after that run, UNLV hopped into its full-court press defense for nearly the rest of the 10-minute quarter.
”We just work on it in practice,” sophomore guard Amarachi Kimpson said. “Once we get to the game we’re going to be ready for it. We just have to keep up our energy throughout the whole game.”
As a result of the pressing defense, the lead swelled to 12 and eventually 17.
Northern Arizona was forced into 18 total turnovers which saw the home team turn it into 21 points including 13 fast break points.
The defensive effort was so stout that it withstood a stretch where the offense scored just three points over the final four-plus minutes of the third quarter.
“Just a touch out of a rhythm,” La Rocque said. “We kind of stayed disciplined, re-gathered ourselves and closed it out there in the fourth quarter really relying on our defense.”
Six players finished the day in double-figures three nights after having five reach the feat.
“We’re still scoring in the paint,” La Rocque said. “But we’ve got a lot of different options out there. Our guards are really aggressive. It is fun from a coach’s standpoint [where] I always feel like there’s some defensive mismatch out there.”
Kimpson led the team in scoring with 19 points on 7-of-14 from the field.
She was joined by 14 points from sophomore McKinna Brackens highlighted by scoring eight points of the team’s first 11.
Seniors Alyssa Brown, Kiara Jackson and Aaliyah Alexander all added 11 points each which fellow senior Macie James chipped in with 10 points off-the-bench.
“You look up and you’ve got six people in double-figures and another with nine,” La Rocque said. “Nearly three double-doubles out there. That wasn’t the game plan going in but that’s kind of how it works out.”
UNLV dominated the paint to the tune of a 60-36 advantage coupled with a +15 rebounding margin. Redshirt freshman Meadow Rowland recorded 10 rebounds in the first half.
Brackens and Brown each posted double-doubles of their own with 10 and 11 rebounds respectively.
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