Lady Rebels look talented

Wednesday, Oct. 16, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

After the first few minutes of practice, it became clear exactly what style of play fans can expect from the UNLV women's basketball team under new head coach LaDonna McClain.

From their "Go Hard ... Or Go Home" T-shirts to the "110 percent" stenciled on the seat of each player's practice trunks, the Lady Rebels plan to play an aggressive, up-tempo style of basketball in their inaugural Western Athletic Conference season.

"Hopefully (the fans) are going to get a team that works very, very hard," McClain said Tuesday after the Lady Rebels' first practice. "We're really striving to stress our defense, our rebounding and keeping our turnovers low.

"We want a team that can run the floor. We've got a lot of work to do but we saw some things today that, with the right combinations out there, we could be very, very effective doing."

McClain, who replaces Jim Bolla after six seasons as head coach at Austin Peay, inherits a team of eight returning players and five newcomers. Although the nucleus of the team is coming off a disastrous and tumultuous 4-21 season, McClain said she likes what she sees.

"We've got a lot of talent, we've just got to work on it, fine-tune it a little bit," McClain said. "I think at this point in time there are a lot more positives than there are negatives -- and I didn't know that until today.

"I think you're going to see some really exciting players. We have a lot of kids who can play, it's simply a matter of getting the right ones on the floor at the right time."

McClain said her biggest challenge in the first few days of practice will be to learn about her new charges.

"It's difficult when you're coming in and you have seven or eight kids that you've not seen and you have five new recruits," McClain said. "Most teams now are worrying about the five new players and I'm worrying about all 13, 14 players."

McClain and the Lady Rebels are hoping to prepare for their first season in the WAC with a difficult preseason schedule that includes two of last year's NCAA Women's Final Four teams -- Connecticut and Georgia -- and NCAA Tournament teams Louisiana Tech, Massachusetts, Oregon, San Francisco and Stephen F. Austin.

"I think the level of competition is going to be better and more challenging, without a doubt," McClain said. "We play a lot of good competition and I think that will make us better and, hopefully by the time the WAC rolls around, we'll be very, very competitive."