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A big night from freshman guard Amarachi Kimpson lifted the UNLV Lady Rebels past the Colorado State Rams in another close finish that went down to the wire.
Close finishes haven’t been new as of late in the Mountain West rivalry. UNLV squeaked past Colorado State, 67-64, Wednesday, Feb. 14 from the Cox Pavilion for their sixth straight win over their Mountain West foe.
“Just our preparation before the game [was different],” Kimpson said. “I really think they’re one of our biggest rivals and we just have to come out with energy because we’re both trying to win the game.”
That win runs the streak to six straight wins for the back-to-back conference champions while improving to 9-1 at home this year. Overall, the team is 21-2 this season and right in the middle of a two-game homestand.
Saturday, Feb. 17 the Lady Rebels will get back to action when the Air Force Falcons come to town for a 5 p.m. tip from the Thomas & Mack Center. That will serve as the first of a doubleheader from the TMC with the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels set to play in the nightcap.
“We’re excited to play in the Thomas & Mack,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “It’s another game in The Mack where our conference tournament is so we’re hoping for a great crowd because we have more seats in there.”
La Rocque flirted with her original gameplan and opted to start Kimpson coming out of halftime and heading into the third quarter. Kimpson responded with a quick three-pointer and soon after would rack up eight points in the first three-plus minutes of the second half.
As the icing on the cake, she capped off the quarter with a buzzer-beating basket to climb within two points of the lead.
“I’m no dumb-dumb,” La Rocque said. “Feed the hot hand and try to put her in situations where she can be successful.”
The freshman out of Little Elm, Texas posted a career-high 20 points on 8-of-11 from the field. She has scored in double figures in four of the last five games and nine times total this season with eight coming in the last 12 outings.
“Rachi is a big time player,” La Rocque said. “You can really see that she’s starting to find her groove and her offense playing with her teammates and getting to her spots. Today, it was her day so me as a coach, I’d be silly not to go back to her.”
Kimpson was also responsible for sharing the defensive responsibility on Colorado State’s McKenna Hofschild. After missing her first three field goals of the game, Hofschild scored her first bucket of the game more than halfway through the first quarter. She’d close the first half shooting just 2-for-9 from the floor.
“She’s a key focal point of our gameplan,” La Rocque said. “We know what she’s capable of so I thought we did a great job on her then some other people got going. Then we kind of had to refocus and change our strategy a little bit but obviously it didn’t hurt us enough to lose so I’m okay.”
Hofschild would finish with 13 points on 5-of-17 shooting in 38 minutes of action. She saw several defensive bodies throughout the night including Kimpson, senior forward Nneka Obiazor and sophomore guard Jasmyn Lott.
“We don’t want to put anybody in just straight [isolations],” Kimpson said. “We just wanted to play team defense a lot better and I think we really did that this game as a whole.”
That defensive effort saw the Lady Rebels hold the Rams without a point for more than six minutes of the 10-minute fourth quarter. Prior to, the game featured 11 lead changes with no team able to build a lead larger than eight.
Senior center Desi-Rae Young recorded her third straight double-double and her 11th of the season with 16 points and 14 rebounds before fouling out of the game. As a team, UNLV won the rebounding battle by 10.
Obiazor added 11 points of her own as the final Lady Rebel in double-figures.
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