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Inspired by their head coach’s birthday, the UNLV Lady Rebels earned a big-time win over a power conference school.
UNLV pummeled DePaul, 80-61, Sunday, Dec. 15 to give its head coach Lindy La Rocque a win on her birthday. Prior to the victory, La Rocque’s group was 0-2 through its first two away games this season.
“I think [the team] know and appreciate how much I care for them,” she said. “I think it’s moments like these and a lot of other times where I know it’s reciprocated. I believe and trust them and I think they believe and trust me so it’s not about me but we might as well go and have some ice cream on a good day.”
In its fifth outing against a school from a power conference, UNLV picked up its second win. As a result, La Rocque moved to 4-10 in such scenarios in her coaching career.
Now sitting with a 7-3 overall record, the Lady Rebels will conclude a long three-game road trip. While staying in the state of Illinois, the team will prepare for a matchup against the Northwestern Wildcats.
That game is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 18 with tip-off slated for 9 a.m. PST. Wednesday’s start time is the earliest scheduled tip-off time for UNLV.
”That’s kind of the point of non-conference play,” La Rocque said. “It’s random places, random teams, random times. You try to kind of sometimes stack the deck against you in adversity to see what your team is made of. And here we are again with another crazy tip time of 9 a.m.
”That was out of our control, frankly. We tried to fight it but it is what’s it’s going to be. So add some more adversity to what we have here in Chicago to go along with weather and just the holidays and everything. So I’m excited to see how our team responds.”
A big second quarter helped produce this runaway win for the Lady Rebels after they went on a 13-0 run to run its lead to 18 points. It would eventually be pushed to 24 points before halftime which would be the team’s largest lead of the game.
UNLV shot 61% in the first half.
Even with DePaul winning the third quarter, 21-12, UNLV went into the final 10 minutes up 13 points on its Big 12 opponent. It would ultimately be a wire-to-wire win for the three-time defending Mountain West champions.
Fifth-year senior guard Aaliyah Alexander scored a season-high 25 points on 8-of-10 from the floor. She also shot a perfect 3-for-3 from downtown in the win.
Alexander hit the team’s first three-pointer early in the second quarter on the way to a 2-for-7 mark from deep for the team in the first half. It would fire off a late barrage from deep to finish the game with a 6-for-15 final mark from deep.
“I think we’ve got an intentionality of getting into the paint for this game,” La Rocque said. “And really we should every game but we were really focused on it this game. I think everybody did a good job of attacking the rim and creating at the basket.
”We have great shooters and I think we’re very capable. Obviously shooting 40% from three isn’t too bad. If you told me I’d get that every game, I’d take it.”
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