Lady Rebels continue roll, beat Utah State
A blown big lead, missed layups, some sloppy passes.
And another UNLV victory.
The Lady Rebels continued their roll Wednesday, beating Utah State 69-61 at Cox Pavilion for their fifth victory in a row and seventh in eight games.
“When we don’t do things well, we regroup and say, ‘Let’s get better. Let’s do things right,’ ” UNLV coach Kathy Olivier said. “They know how to do that now.”
UNLV (13-13, 10-5 Mountain West) moved into fourth place alone in the conference, and the Lady Rebels have three games remaining to try to climb even higher before the league tournament at the Thomas &Mack Center. Their next game is Saturday at Wyoming (13-12, 8-7).
The Lady Rebels weren’t always sharp against Utah State (7-20, 4-11), but they made plays at key moments, including picking up the defensive intensity by switching to zone. Utah State didn’t score a field goal over the final 4:12 and was held scoreless for the last 3:44.
“I did it to try to slow them down,” Olivier said of going to zone. “I thought they were going to try to score a quick one. I tried to make them work the ball a little more. I thought we were going to have to go more zone against them tonight, but I thought our man (defense) was pretty good. They’re an unorthodox team. They’re hard a team to defend, and I thought we did a really good job of defending them.
“I think our defense has been the thing we’ve really leaned on to be successful.”
It was particularly successful down the stretch against Utah State guard Funda Nakkasoglu, a freshman from Australia. She scored 19 points, but took a couple of forced 3-pointers late over the zone and wasn’t able to connect when the Aggies were trying to catch UNLV.
“I think because they do a lot of isolation plays for (Nakkasoglu), we went to that zone,” UNLV guard Danielle Miller said. “It was kind of like, get the ball out of her hands. Make other girls win the game. She keeps them in games single-handedly.”
UNLV also proved resilient after letting a 17-point first half lead disappear when the Aggies tied the game at 42 with 14:54 left in the game. That’s when Brooke Johnson, who made all eight of her points truly count, stepped up with back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Lady Rebels the lead for good at 48-42.
“I felt the first one and the second one was there, so I think after that we all started to let it be more known this is our game,” Johnson said.
Her other two points were on a pair of free throws with 36 seconds left and UNLV clinging to a four-point lead. Those free throws came after Nikki Wheatley jumped into the lane to rebound her own miss off a one-and-one.
Several players made big contributions to the victory.
Miller, who leads the Mountain West with 18.5 points per game, continued to boost her argument for conference Player of the Year. She scored 21 points against Utah State and had six assists and six rebounds.
Alana Cesarz scored 13 first-half points and finished with 18 points and seven rebounds. Aley Rohde collected 14 rebounds.
No Mountain West team is playing better than UNLV, which has the conference’s longest active winning streak. The Lady Rebels also have beaten two of the three teams ahead of them in the standings.
“We’ve been talking about it in the locker room, just having that quiet confidence knowing we can beat any team in this conference,” Miller said. “We picked the perfect time to mesh well.”
Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65.
