Lady Rebels begin run for 3rd straight tournament title

UNLV women’s basketball coach Lindy La Rocque would like to think the Lady Rebels are in the NCAA Tournament regardless of what happens at this week’s Mountain West Conference tournament.

That wasn’t the case the previous two seasons, she said.

The Lady Rebels are projected as a No. 8 seed in ESPN’s latest bracketology projections. They sit at No. 28 in the NCAA’s NET rankings.

La Rocque said she’d still much rather have UNLV control its destiny by winning the Mountain West tournament for a third straight year.

“We want to put ourselves in the best possible position for success,” La Rocque said. “That’s us winning and winning the conference tournament, and then letting everyone else decide where we should be placed and seeded and all that stuff in the big tournament.”

No. 1-seeded UNLV (27-2) faces No. 9 Fresno State (15-17) in a quarterfinal matchup at noon Monday at the Thomas & Mack Center. The Bulldogs defeated No. 8 Air Force 62-44 in a first-round game Sunday.

UNLV won at Fresno State 63-49 on Feb. 10 in the lone regular-season meeting between the two teams.

“We’re playing for a championship. We’ve been harping on that all year,” senior center Desi-Rae Young said. “We’re going to take every single game like it’s a championship game until we come out with the trophy. … We kind of all know what it takes to win in these big games.”

The Lady Rebels hope to add a tournament championship to pair with their third straight regular-season crown. They closed this year strong, defeating San Diego State 100-41 on March 2 and Utah State 104-44 on Tuesday.

“I really like how we’ve played the last couple of games,” La Rocque said. “We’re hungry to play even better, we’re clicking, and I think that’s important. It’s one thing to kind of be unsatisfied and think we can always play better but to acknowledge that we are playing pretty good and that’s a good thing.”

No. 23 UNLV picked up some additional hardware Sunday before its quest for a tournament championship got underway.

Young was named the Mountain West’s player of the year for the second time. The Las Vegas native and Desert Oasis graduate averaged 18.6 points and nine rebounds per game and was named to the All-Mountain West Team and All-Defensive Team.

Junior point guard Kiara Jackson was also named to the All-Mountain West Team.

Freshman guard Amarachi Kimpson was named the conference’s freshman of the year and sixth player of the year. Kimpson has averaged 8.4 points per game while playing 20 minutes each night.

“The hardest piece of winning is the sustainability piece,” La Rocque said. “They’ve seen Desi for a few years and even our juniors, they’ve seen Kiara grow up before their eyes, but it just doesn’t stop there. It’s important for us to know what we’ve got young players developing.”

La Rocque said that Jackson and Young have had a “different look” about them the last few weeks. She credited both players for embracing their leadership roles. Now, they hope to lead their team to yet another championship.

“No one’s scared of what’s in front of us,” La Rocque said. “They’ve all got to have that look of, ‘We got to get the job done.’ It starts with Kiara and Desi and they’re committed to that.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.