Lady Rebels roll over Toreros amidst five-game homestand

UNLV’s women’s basketball program has never lost to the program from UC San Diego. After adding another installment to the all-time series, the fact still remains.

This year’s Lady Rebels ran its overall record to 4-1 with an 88-54 win over the Toreros, Tuesday, Nov. 19 from the Cox Pavilion. All four of the teams wins this season have come at home.

“Always good to get another win,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “And get everyone in the game and having everyone see all types of success.”

Tuesday’s matchup was the second of a five-game homestand that will continues later this week. It will continue with a Friday night matchup with the Oklahoma Sooners. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. from the Thomas & Mack Center.

La Rocque has a 2-8 coaching record against schools from Power conferences.

“We saw lots of good things out there tonight,” La Rocque said. “I’m proud of us being able to get the win. Our team knows we still have multiple things we have to improve upon and we have to be a lot better come Friday.”

Once again, everybody in uniform logged minutes for the Lady Rebels in this blowout victory. The team’s bench accounted for 33 points, which was +21 of its opponent’s bench.

Reigning Mountain West Freshman of the Week Meadow Roland led that unit with 15 points and nine rebounds in 23 minutes. She tallied those numbers on an efficient 6-for-11 from the field.

”In what ended up being a lopsided game, it wasn’t just at the end of the game,” La Rocque said. “I thought Meadow Roland coming off the bench was huge. I thought [senior] Kenadee Winfrey had a huge game for us and made big plays when the game was still really close and to help separate it.”

The bench was able to take a firm grasp of the game after the starters had netted the team a nice cushion. The group helped to force San Diego into six first quarter turnovers which turned into 10 points on the other end.

The defensive stranglehold allowed UNLV to build a 24-point lead in the first half before going up by 34 ultimately late in the fourth.

“We had some stretches during the game where we weren’t at our best defensively,” La Rocque said. “But then figured out how to fix it. I think we still haven’t put together a full 40-minute game. Which is okay but we’ve got to continue to get closer as each game goes on.”

Senior guard Kiara Jackson scored 14 points to lead all starters on 6-of-13 shooting. She missed both of her three-point attempts so she has now pushed her frigid shooting start to 0-for-14 to open the new year.

As a team, the Lady Rebels shot 8-for-23 from three-point territory with half of those falling in the final 10 minutes of regulation.

Sophomore guard Amarachi Kimpson added 13 points while fellow starting backcourt mate Aaliyah Alexander contributed 12 of her own. Alexander has now scored in double-figures in four of her first five games with UNLV.