Lopsided fourth quarter leads Lady Rebels to first loss of season

In a primetime showing on the national stage, the UNLV Lady Rebels fell just short of what would’ve been perhaps their biggest resume-building win.

After falling to the Baylor Bears by seven points on the road last year, UNLV fell short, 62-54, this time at home from The Pavilion Friday, Nov. 14.

“I thought frankly, we gave them a great game,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “Great game, I’m really proud of our team and our fight and the effort. Fourth quarter slipped away from us, had a nice little lead and just need to be a little bit tougher down the stretch.”

Through three games this season, the Lady Rebels are 1-1 against Power Conference schools. Entering this one, the Bears were ranked as the seventh-best team in the country.

“Each opportunity presents a new witness to what we can do,” La Rocque said. “I still am really excited, hopefully now other people are excited. We have a lot of talent [and] can do a lot of things.”

Now at 2-1 on the year, UNLV will now head out for its first road trip of the season. It begins Tuesday, Nov. 18 against Montana State with tip-off slated for 6 p.m.

“We’ve got two tough road games,” La Rocque said. “We want to take confidence from this game, sure. But we’ve got to get back to work because Montana State at their place, picked to win their league, an NCAA tournament team the last few years and that’s going to be a challenge.

“They’re not ranked No. 7 in the country but they’re pretty dang good.”

A scoring drought that saw the Lady Rebels go without a point for more than seven minutes in the fourth quarter pretty much undid a third quarter that had the home team primed for a big-time victory.

While UNLV went scoreless for 7:23, Baylor went on an 11-0 run to gain control of the game down the stretch.

“We fought until the end,” sophomore forward Meadow Roland said. “I feel like we could’ve done a little better in the fourth quarter but I’m still proud of my team. And it only gives me hope for the future that we can go and how long of a run we can make in the postseason.”

After going down eight points early in the third quarter behind a 5-0 start by the Bears out of halftime, the Lady Rebs went on a run of their own to go up eight.

Tough defense held Baylor without a point for more than half of the 10-minute third quarter as the home team went on a 9-0 run to take the lead.

That stretch would ultimately turn into a 14-2 run as part of a 22-13 third quarter by La Rocque’s group. Over the last two games against DePaul and Baylor, UNLV has finished +14 in the third quarter.

“Sometimes I feel like it’s adjustments and sometimes I feel like it’s us settling into the game,” Roland said. “Realizing it’s not that bad, it’s not hard or we can do it, we’re hanging in there, it’s right there.”

The aforementioned 14-2 run was capped by a pair of three-pointers from senior guards Jasmyn Lott and Mariah Elohim. The former finished with a career-high 18 points, leading her team in scoring.

It appeared Lott suffered an injury after she went down early in the fourth quarter, appearing to hold her right leg. That right leg houses a big brace on her knee a season removed from missing the entire year due to a knee injury.

“She is a fighter,” La Rocque said. “She had a little scare there obviously, everybody knows she’s coming back from her knee [injury] so we’re very cautious of that. Displaying the toughness to put herself back out there and frankly, we needed her.”

Lott would be helped up from the hardwood before heading to the back with the team’s medical staff. She’d later return to score the final field goal of the night for the Lady Rebels as they finished the contest 1 for their last 18 shots from the floor.

Down four with 26.2 seconds left, UNLV missed a golden opportunity to make things tighter when it stepped out of bounds while running the after-timeout play.

“I’ll have to go back and watch the fourth quarter,” La Rocque said. “I thought we had really good looks. I thought we got great looks and sometimes that is really deflating. Missing a layup or two and knowing that you’re right there.”

Roland recorded a double-double for a second straight game, this time finishing with 13 points and 11 rebounds. She was responsible for helping lure Baylor big Darianna Littlepage-Buggs into two fouls in the first 4:56 of the game.

That forced the six-foot, one-inch forward to log just five first half minutes. Last year, Littlepage-Buggs went for 21 points and 20 rebounds in the win for the Bears over the Lady Rebels in Waco, Texas.

“She is a tremendous player,” La Rocque said. “She’s tremendous, last year she ripped us a new one. Our intention was not to get her in foul trouble honestly, I didn’t put it all together until I got the halftime stats [...] But we knew she was going to come back out in the second half and be eager and hungry for more impact in the game.

“I think she single-handedly beat us last year and we didn’t let that happen this year.”

UNLV won the rebounding battle in the first half, 21-17, but would be outrebounded by seven the remainder of the way.