UNLV picked for conference four-peat, but goals set even higher

The UNLV women’s basketball team is projected to win a fourth straight Mountain West championship.

The team received 21 of 30 first-place votes in a poll of media members and coaches released Wednesday before conference media day at Resorts World.

“I’m really excited for our team. I think it’s very deserving,” fifth-year coach Lindy La Rocque said. “Obviously, we’ve had a great couple of years, and so to be picked No. 1, it’s great to feel the respect from our peers.”

La Rocque attended the event with senior forward Alyssa Brown and senior guard Kiara Jackson, whom she said she expects to lead the charge as the Lady Rebels look to four-peat.

Brown, Jackson and sophomore guard Amarachi Kimpson, last season’s Mountain West Freshman of the Year and Sixth Player of the Year, were selected to the preseason All-Mountain West team. UNLV was the only squad with more than one player on the team.

Being on top of the league is nothing new for the Lady Rebels, and they want more for the 2024-25 season.

NCAA Tournament goals

UNLV has already accomplished unprecedented dominance as the only team in the league to finish three consecutive seasons as the regular-season and tournament champion. However, the Lady Rebels still haven’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 1991, losing three straight first-round games, including 87-73 to Creighton last season.

La Rocque said winning the conference and making it to the NCAA Tournament is all Brown, Jackson and redshirt junior guard Kenadee Winfrey have ever known, and they’re “sick of it a little bit” in not advancing.

The coach expects that to translate on the court.

“We’ve fallen short three times,” Brown said. “So there’s a little bit of a chip on our shoulders that we want to make it deeper and get back to where we were throughout the season.”

UNLV was 18-0 in the conference and 31-3 overall in 2022-23, then went 30-3 last season with a 17-1 record in the Mountain West.

La Rocque said she doesn’t necessarily expect the Lady Rebels to have as impressive of an overall record this campaign. The program opted for a much more difficult nonconference schedule, with games against Oklahoma and Arizona in November and a December visit to Baylor, which made the Sweet 16 last season.

“You can’t just do the same thing expecting a different result,” La Rocque said. “So that’s where we’ve been strategic with our nonconference scheduling. I think our conference is going to be more competitive than it’s ever been, and challenging. So once the tournament rolls around, I think we’ll be even more prepared than what we’ve felt like we’ve been in the last couple of years.”

Same style without Young

The team will be without two-time Mountain West Player of the Year Desi-Rae Young, who graduated in the spring. She declared for the WNBA draft in April and was cut by the Phoenix Mercury before the season began.

“That was a little different the first few practices,” La Rocque said of Young’s absence. “But our identity in terms of style of play isn’t changing. Our team chemistry is better than it’s ever been.”

The Lady Rebels will still focus heavily on playing through the paint, La Rocque said. The 6-foot-1-inch Brown, the MVP of the Mountain West tournament in March, will be vital in that effort.

La Rocque also likes what she’s seeing from two other forwards, 6-1 sophomore McKinna Brackens and 6-2 redshirt freshman Meadow Roland.

The coach expects guard play to help drive the offense, but she described the team’s identity at the position as “learning.”

“I know that we’re going to be physical, gritty and tough, but we’re figuring all that stuff out right now,” La Rocque said. “We’re going to have a lot of players out there that haven’t logged a lot of game minutes, so it’s going to really rely on some great leadership.”

Jackson is up for the challenge.

“Some of them have never experienced this before, and I had to understand that,” she said. “I have to help them out and talk to them.”

Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X