La Rocque suffers rare second straight loss as Bobcats overpower Lady Rebels

A matchup between a pair of 30-win teams from a season ago provided another early-season storyline but resulted in a rare second consecutive loss for the UNLV women’s basketball program.

Entering its first road game of the season after the program’s first loss, UNLV was beaten again this time by Montana State. The Bobcats, fresh off a 30-win season coupled with an NCAA Tournament berth, beat the Lady Rebels, 94-81, Tuesday, Nov. 18.

Over the last two seasons, Montana State has just one home loss.

Last time out, the Lady Rebels were toppled by the Baylor Bears, the No. 7 team in the country, at home. Now, La Rocque has back-to-back losses for the first time since 2020-21, her first season as a head coach.

Now sitting at 2-2 on the year, La Rocque’s group is preparing to head into its second straight road contest. It will travel to neighboring Arizona for a dance with the Arizona State Sun Devils.

That game is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22. That will serve as the Lady Rebels’ last contest before hosting this year’s UNLV Thanksgiving Turkey Tip-Off.

Entering play, Montana State entered a Top-10 team in the country in terms of steals. It lived up to that billing with four first quarter steals while forcing UNLV into seven total turnovers in the first 10 minutes.

Even when the Lady Rebels had things going well on offense, the turnovers just couldn’t keep the team out of its own way. At halftime, the visitors were shooting 46% from the field but had committed 11 turnovers.

In total, UNLV turned the ball over 23 times in the loss.

All those turnovers allowed the Bobcats to go on a 9-0 run just before halftime that put the defending four-time Mountain West Regular Season Champions down by 11 points. That 11-point hole created the largest deficit of the season for UNLV.

While the Lady Rebels made several attempts at comeback efforts, it was never enough as the team ultimately fell behind 14 points in the final frame. By the final buzzer, La Rocque’s club had given up a season-high in points with the 94 points on the board for the home team.

In addition, those 94 points scored by the opponent are the second-most points allowed under La Rocque. The most was 101 points scored by Stanford during La Rocque’s first season as lead woman of the Scarlet & Gray.

Senior guard Jasmyn Lott tallied 13 points in the first half but the defensive adjustment made at halftime by Montana State took her out of the game completely in the second. She’d be held scoreless in the second half.

Former All-Big Sky guard Aaliyah Alexander led UNLV with 18 points despite shooting a frozen 6-for-20 from the field. She recorded her conference honors while a member of Eastern Washington.

Transfer guard Mariah Elohim chipped in with 15 points of her own. Four of her five made field goals came from beyond the arc. Her four made threes were nearly half of the team’s 10 made trey balls on a night where it shot 39% as a group.

Sophomore forward Meadow Roland had another strong performance with 13 points on 6-of-9 from the field to go along with eight rebounds. Her outing was cut short when she fouled out of the game with just about half of the fourth quarter elapsed.

While the offensive numbers were there, UNLV’s defense failed its offense in a big way. Montana State pumped out a 25-point scorer in forward Addison Harris as part of its winning ways.

Harris led all scorers on the day with 26 points on a very efficient 10-for-16 from the floor including five made three-pointers.

The lack of defense kept UNLV from completing its comeback attempt. Several times the team cut the once double-digit deficit down to six points even trimming it down to four once. Even with that, the Lady Rebels were never able to inch any closer.