UNLV opens new season with pull-away victory over LMU

The campaign to a potential fourth straight conference championship for the UNLV Lady Rebels is officially underway.

UNLV ousted LMU, 73-57, Monday, Nov. 5 from the Cox Pavilion. The program is coming off three straight Mountain West regular season and tournament titles. It yielded three straight NCAA Tournament Bert’s but have resulted in a 0-3 win-loss record in such instances.

“Just really proud of our group,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “It’s really nice to just get the first one under our belt — first off, we had a great crowd and that’s always fun to play in front of.”

This year’s Lady Rebels will look to go to 2-0 in their next contest which will be against the Northern Arizona Lumberjack. Both programs have played each other each of the last four seasons with each club claiming two wins apiece.

That game is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 7 with an early tip-off slated for 11 a.m.

“It wasn’t our best game by any means,” La Rocque said. “But that’s not expected on game one.”

A +10 third quarter helped seal the victory for UNLV. The team went into its full-court press defense nearly immediately. In the first two quarters, La Rocque briefly used the method but opted to use it early out of the halftime gates.

“Mia Bell is our assistant and is in charge of our scout,” La Rocque said. ”I thought we really prepared our team as absolutely best we could with so many unknown variables out there.”

As the press tightened so did the stranglehold on the game. The Lady Rebs turned a five-point halftime lead into a 15-point advantage of the final 10 minutes. The lead would eventually swell to 21 in the final quarter.

UNLV held its opponent to just 30% shooting in the third quarter on the way to 41% for the game.

“Historically, our teams have been really good at making adjustments at halftime,” La Rocque said. “Holding them to seven points in the third quarter, we felt like we could really stretch the lead there but we had to talk about it at halftime.”

The obvious omission from the team was two-time Mountain West Player of the Year Desi-Rae Young, who was in attendance as last year’s team was recognized for its run. Now having moved on from the team, she leaves as the program’s second leading scorer all-time.

La Rocque and company were responsible for replacing 18.3 points per game and nearly nine rebounds per outing. The program does have 10 returning players to assist in that department.

”I’ve always kept it real with them,” Young said. “I’ve always said when it comes to basketball, that’s all it has to be about. We’re all girls: we have our emotions, we get sad, we get mad, we get angry, we get tired. But at the end of the day, we all love each other and this is a sisterhood.

“Lindy respects us, we respect Lindy — She’s like our Mama Bear. Even though, she has two kids of her own, she has 14 more right here.”

Five players scored in double-figures en route to the season-opening dub. Eight of the 11 players that played scored for UNLV.

“We got everyone in the basketball game,” La Rocque said. “We had five people in double-figures — I mean, I could go down the line. Every person did something really great.”

One of the few new faces to the roster, fifth-year guard Aaliyah Alexander, led the team in scoring with 16 points. She scored her 16 on a very efficient 6-of-8 shooting performance in her Lady Rebel debut.

“Aaliyah had her first game here in a Lady Rebel uniform,” La Rocque said. “She showed why we brought her here and made me look good so I always like that.”

UNLV got big supporting nights from senior guard Kiara Jackson and sophomore guard Amarachi Kimpson with 14 and 13 points respectively. Sophomore McKinna Brackens added 10 points as the final starter in double-figures while redshirt freshman Meadow Rowland played in her first game as a Lady Rebel after sitting out last season.

Rowland finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds off the bench.

UNLV did it without the three-point shot. It made its first one at the 7:10-mark of the second quarter after missing on its first six tries.

The team finished with just three made three-pointers on 14 attempts.

”I relate it a little bit to some of the first game jitters,” La Rocque said. “If the first one goes in then sometimes they all go in but if the first one doesn’t go in — I thought we were really wide open, almost too open a couple of times.”