Saturday, March 19, 2022 | 2 a.m.
The UNLV women’s basketball team earned its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002 by winning the Mountain West Conference tournament earlier this month. Now it will look for its first tournament victory since 1991 at 7 p.m. on March 19 as a No. 13 seed taking on No. 4 seed Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, in a game broadcast on ESPN2.
Here are five reasons to be excited about the UNLV women’s return to the tournament.
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1. They play a crowd-pleasing style.
This isn’t an undertalented No. 13 seed that’s going to let the air out of the ball, drain the clock and hope to drag No. 4 seed Arizona into a rock fight. As it has all season, UNLV will push the pace, run a high-powered offense and shoot its shot.
UNLV averaged 75.6 points per game this season, making it the 19th-highest-scoring team in the nation. Three players average in double figures, and two others came in at nine points per game in conference play, so there are multiple threats on the floor at all times.
Junior forward Desi-Rae Young does her work inside (15.1 points), and junior guard Essence Booker runs things on the perimeter (15.6 points). That’s a tough matchup combo for any opponent, even Arizona and its 43rd-ranked defense (56.8 points per game).
UNLV head coach Lindy La Rocque sounds confident UNLV’s offensive attack will give it a chance at pulling an upset on Saturday.
“Offensively, we want to get in transition and score a lot of points,” La Rocque says. “I don’t know exactly what the game plan is going to be yet, but we’re going to have a good one, and we’re going to go out there and give it our best shot.”
2. They have a local foundation.
Booker is a Spring Valley High grad who committed to UNR out of high school before transferring to Ball State and then to UNLV last offseason. Now, the junior is back home and playing terrific ball, leading the team in scoring, assists (3.8 per game) and steals (1.5).
Young, UNLV’s second-leading scorer and top rebounder (8.4 per game), is a Desert Oasis High product, while starting guard Justice Ethridge was the Gatorade National Player of the Year as a senior at Centennial in 2017-18.
Booker, who took home Mountain West tournament MVP honors after averaging 17.3 points and 4.7 assists over three games, has become a leader among the band of locals. Her fearless approach to the NCAA Tournament is surely rubbing off on her teammates.
“We think we can beat anyone,” Booker says. “We believe we can win, especially this first round. We’ve got to take it one game at a time, but we’re definitely confident going into this tournament.”
3.They can rain 3-pointers.
The Scarlet and Gray shot 35.8% from long distance this season, good for 20th in the nation. Between Alyssa Durazo-Frescas (43.4%), Booker (37.7%) and Khayla Rooks (34.0%), UNLV can seriously stretch a defense to its breaking point.
In a tournament setting, the 3-point shot can be the great equalizer. If UNLV is hitting on Saturday, things could get very interesting for the underdogs.
4. Coaching counts.
La Rocque has something special going at UNLV, as evidenced by her phenomenal record through her first two years as coach (41-15 overall, 28-8 in the Mountain West). In terms of recruiting, teaching, roster management, Xs and Os and game management—all the things that constitute running a college hoops program—La Rocque has been a slam dunk.
Her most recent masterstroke? Cribbing an out-of-bounds play from the Arizona playbook and using it late in the MWC championship game to free up Booker for a dagger shot that clinched UNLV’s tourney bid.
Expect La Rocque to have something novel up her sleeve as she drives her squad in pursuit of an NCAA win that mark be a true milestone for the program.
“We’re not just going to be happy to be here,” La Rocque says. “We want to execute. We want to put a great game plan together, because we want to win.”
5.There’s magic in the air.
This hasn’t just been a successful season for UNLV. From an 11-3 start in nonconference play to a 12-game winning streak in January and February, a Mountain West regular season title and then a three-day romp to the conference tournament championship, this campaign is turning into something more. Something … magical.
That energy was apparent at the team’s watch party for the NCAA Tournament selection show. The players and coaches cheered as their game was announced, exchanged hugs and then began thinking about what it will take to pull off the upset.
Booker is setting the tone this week. “Obviously, going into this next game we’re the underdogs, but I don’t think we’re going to play like one at all,” Booker says.
Knocking off a ranked team, stocked with top recruits, in its own building, in front of what’s sure to be a partisan crowd might seem like a monumental task. But this UNLV team believes.
“We know we’re not going to be the biggest team, we know we’re not going to be the fastest team or maybe not the most skilled, but we’re going to have to play together and leave it all out on the court,” Rooks says. “That’s what it’s going to take.”
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
