Lady Rebels rock Spartans on road without Roland in uniform, set up Saturday showdown with Aztecs

UNLV head coach Lindy La Rocque moved some pieces on her chessboard ahead of the program’s last outing resulting in reigning Mountain West Player of the Week Meadow Roland being held out of the game for “load management” purposes.

Without its leading scorer, the Lady Rebels stymied the San Jose State Spartans, 78-50, Wednesday, Jan. 14 from the Provident Credit Union Event Center. UNLV has now won the last eight meetings against its Mountain West foe.

Additionally, the outcome brought an end to an undefeated two-game road trip for the program.

The Lady Rebels are now 12-5 this season as it pushes its current season-long win streak to seven consecutive games. All wins have come as part of conference play. As it presently stands, the team sits in second place of the Mountain West’s standings only trailing the San Diego State Aztecs (12-3, 7-0).

With both teams perfect through their first seven conference games of the season, first place will be claimed by one of the programs Saturday, Jan. 17 from The Pavilion. At that time, UNLV will host SDSU with tip-off scheduled for 2 p.m.

That will mark the beginning of a two-game homestand for the Lady Rebels.

Without Roland in tow for the team, UNLV used its sometimes streaky outside shooting to down San Jose State in enemy territory.

From the jump, the Lady Rebels knocked down four of its eventual 12 made three-pointers in the first quarter.

Reserve guard Mariah Elohim accounted for six of the team’s 12 three-pointers on her way to a team-high 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting. All of her field goal tries came from beyond the arc.

Elohim’s performance helped UNLV score 51 points off the bench as a team. This included six points from freshman guard Hodaya Kabada, who scored her first collegiate points in the team’s last contest at Wyoming.

In the victory, all players in uniform logged minutes for La Rocque.

Senior guard Aaliyah Alexander chipped in with three made longballs during her nine-point outing. She finished just one made three-pointer shy of tying her career-high of four.

With some extra space in the paint to work with, senior forward Shelbee Brown recorded her fifth double-double of the season with 12 points and 13 rebounds. She has tallied 10 or more rebounds in 10 of the team’s 17 games this season.

Fellow senior forward Destiny Brown added 15 points off the bench in 18 minutes of action.

Senior guard Jasmyn Lott was held to another cold shooting night, this time to the tune of 1-of-8 from the floor. She closed her outing with four points.

Lott has scored five points or less in three games including back-to-back contests.

UNLV’s defense is the reason the program was able to secure the victory over San Jose State. The club forced the home team into four turnovers in the first five minutes of the game.

The Spartans were rushed into 13 first half turnovers on the way to 20 for the game. The Lady Rebels turned those 20 turnovers into 21 points.

UNLV went up by as many as 20 points early in the third quarter. Shortly after, San Jose State made a run to trim the deficit to single-digits at nine points with 1:45 left in the frame.

Things were tightened once again in the fourth as the visitors went up by 28 points en route to the win.