SDSU’s defensive pressure causes meltdown as UNLV loses first conference game

UNLV women’s basketball suffered its first conference loss in a defeat that snapped its longest win streak of the season.

In a battle for first place in the Mountain West, the Lady Rebels lost, 75-66, in overtime to the San Diego State Aztecs Saturday, Jan. 17 from The Pavilion. In the last six meetings, the two programs have split victories including a SDSU win in the Mountain West Championship semifinals last year.

“Just a heck of a basketball game,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “Two of the best teams in the conference going head-to-head and it [goes to] overtime, it takes extra time. So there’s no surprise there.”

While losing out on a chance at first place momentarily, the loss additionally ended a season-long seven-game win streak for UNLV. Moreover, it was just the second home loss in nine tries this season.

As it sits in second place, the Lady Rebels sport a 12-6 overall record coupled with a 7-1 Mountain West record.

“The league is continuing to get better,” La Rocque said. “San Diego State is a really good team but I think Colorado State is a good team, we have lots of good teams in our league. We want to play them at their place with the same things on the line.”

Saturday marked the first of a two-game homestand which will conclude midweek. Wednesday, Jan. 21 UNLV will host Air Force from The Pavilion with tip-off slated for 6:30 p.m.

“This doesn’t decide the conference championship,” La Rocque said. “It was a great game and we’re of course disappointed but it’s not the end of the season. We’ve got some things to clean up and we’ll do that and get back to work.”

The Lady Rebels were limited to just one lone field goal make in the extra five minutes as part of the overtime session. For a vast majority of overtime, the team was tormented by the defense of SDSU’s Nala Williams, who recorded two of her game-high foul steals in the shortened session.

UNLV found itself with double-digit turnovers early in the second quarter as part of the tough defense being played by the visitors. For nearly 10 gametime minutes of the first half, the team was limited to just three made field goals.

This included going without a point for nearly four minutes of the first quarter.

“At times we were playing at our own pace,” senior forward Shelbee Brown said. “At times we were getting sped up by the other team.”

In total, the Lady Rebels committed 24 turnovers in the loss. Even after two free throw misses by the Aztecs with just over a second left in regulation, the home team coughed away a chance at winning the game in the fourth quarter after committing a turnover after the timeout.

“It’s a big game with a lot on the line,” La Rocque said. “And they’re young players, they’re young people. We’re asking [senior] Aaliyah Alexander to play point guard and she’s never done that in her 23 years of life.”

Both teams combined to make six three-pointers in a second quarter that featured high-level play from both teams heading into halftime.

“We had a lot of good players making big-time plays,” Brown said. “I think it was good shots after good shots. It was just back-and-forth.”

San Diego State never came off that heater coming out of the halftime break. The team knocked down five threes in the first half of the third quarter on the way to shooting 9-for-16 from the field in the frame with six total made longballs.

“That wasn't our gameplan to come out in the third quarter and give them five threes in the first five minutes after holding them to four in the first 20 minutes,” La Rocque said. “I do think threes is where they kind of get their juice. They got free there and we [had] some missed assignments and got out of sync defensively.”

Ultimately, the Lady Rebels went down by as many as 10 points early in the fourth quarter. In fact, they held its opponent without a point for more than four and a half minutes but turnovers prevented the team from making up more ground.

That three-point bug from the second quarter returned just before the end of regulation when reserve guard Mariah Elohim drilled back-to-back threes in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 60 apiece.

As a team, UNLV shot 6-of-13 from three-point territory.

“She has shown up in some of the biggest moments for us,” La Rocque said. “Honestly, all season. We call her number and she really delivers, she seems to always get one in transition on her own and that always sparks us.”

Elohim closed the contest with 11 points with three made threes.

Senior guard Aaliyah Alexander led the team with 18 points on 7-of-13 from the field. She also was responsible for the team’s lone overtime field goal.

After being held to nine total points over the last two games combined, senior guard Jasmyn Lott hit double-figures with 13 points for the first time since Jan. 7.

Brown scored the go-ahead layup for the Lady Rebels as part of a 14-2 fourth quarter run by the team to take a, 62-60, lead. Earlier in the contest, she hit a second quarter buzzer-beater to give the home squad a one-point lead heading into the break.

In the end, Brown tallied 13 points on 50% shooting and eight rebounds before fouling out of the contest.

“They were collapsing hard,” she said. “We were trying when they doubled to pick it up and kick it out, it just didn’t go as planned. They had a hard collapse, it’s a good defensive team.”

That effort came in spite of San Diego State’s defensive gameplan to swipe and collapse on the UNLV bigs on the dribble inside the paint. Reigning Mountain West Player of the Week Meadow Roland was handcuffed for a good portion of the night as a result of it.

Roland didn’t record her second made field goal until late in regulation on her way to six points on 2-of-8 shooting in 42 minutes of action.

“I think we’ll go back and continue to watch the film on that to be able to help our forwards,” La Rocque said. “We knew that it would be congested in there. Maybe it came a little quicker than maybe we practiced or talked about.”