UNLV earns first road win in stomping of UTSA

UNLV women’s basketball program finally can stop for ice cream after a road win this season.

The team entered another hostile environment where the home team came in winners of 17 straight inside its home gym but UNLV whooped UTSA, 66-39, Wednesday, Dec. 3. That marked the program’s first road win of the season after starting the year 0-2 in such instances.

“We talked all week about our team being road tough,” head coach Lindy La Rocque said. “I thought we did a great job coming out from the jump with great intention and purpose of executing our gameplan.”

The active win streak has the Lady Rebels up to 5-3 on the year as the consecutive win stretch hit three straight games on Wednesday. This comes after the program lost three straight games including a home loss to a ranked Baylor Bears team, a lopsided loss on the road at Montana State against the Bobcats and a last-second buzzer-beating loss to the Sun Devils on the campus of Arizona State.

Wednesday marked the first of a four-game road trip for La Rocque’s group which will continue in the state of Texas. A road contest against Rice is up next for the team and that game is set for Saturday, Dec. 6 with tip-off slated for 4:30 p.m.

A zeroed-in defensive approach saw UNLV locked in early and it led to the eventual blowout win. On the opponent’s floor, the team held UTSA without a make on its first six field goal attempts of the game with two turnovers in the first 5:54 of the contest.

By the end of the first quarter, the Roadrunners had been held to just one make on 15 field goal attempts to go along with four turnovers. The Lady Rebels took a, 20-2, lead into the second quarter.

Additionally, UNLV didn’t allow its first point in the paint until about midway through the second quarter. Moreover, it allowed its first made three-pointer of the game even later than that.

En route to the win, the Lady Rebels racked up 10 steals and eight blocks.

“Playing physical, hard-nose basketball,” La Rocque said. “So that we can put ourselves in a position to win.”

Stingy efforts on defense allowed UNLV to haul in 20 first quarter rebounds including 11 on the offensive end while leading the rebounding battle by 10. By the final buzzer, the team had gobbled up 50 total rebounds.

Sophomore forward Meadow Roland and transfer forward Shelbee Brown combined to swallow up 24 rebounds while accounting for 11 points on 4-of-19 shooting.

In the opening quarter, the Lady Rebels led by as many as 18 points on the way to leading by as many as 34 in the win. Even after being duped into six turnovers in the second quarter, the early lead was more than enough to cushion the team’s mistakes in a game where it never trailed.

On a night where the offense wasn’t shooting lights out, a strong defensive effort was needed. UNLV shot just 40% in the win but it did have a scattered three-point shooting performance.

In the third quarter, the Lady Rebels had four players with at least one made three on the night. A quarter later, that number would jump to four players with at least two made longballs.

Senior guard Jasmyn Lott led all scorers with a career-high 21 points on 9-for-15 from the field. She’d leave the game in the fourth quarter after appearing to be hobbled.

Lott missed all of last season with a torn ACL.

Fifth-year guard Aaliyah Alexander was the only other UNLV player in double-figures with 10 points on 4-of-7 from the floor.