Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Lady Rebels face Hawaii

First-year UNLV women's basketball coach Regina Miller finds herself with a rather pleasant dilemma these days.

Miller, who inherited a UNLV squad that had won just four games in each of its three previous seasons, had to educate her Lady Rebels about the term "March Madness."

Why?

Because the Lady Rebels (16-10, 7-7 in the WAC's Mountain Division) will be making their first-ever appearance in the WAC's postseason tournament tonight when they face the University of Hawaii (17-9, 9-5 Pacific Division) at the Thomas & Mack Center.

"When I came to practice (Sunday) night it was so different for them," Miller said. "What I'm talking about is March Madness. This is their first experience of it. You play all season to get to this point of the year and that's how we have to approach it. We want to go out and play each game and play our hearts out. If we go down, we go down scratching eyes out."

Miller's Lady Rebels, who concluded their WAC regular season with a tough 79-74 victory over Wyoming on Saturday night, have been one of the true Cinderella stories of college basketball this year.

UNLV was a dismal 4-23 a year ago and was picked to seventh in the WAC's Mountain Division in the coaches' preseason poll ahead of only lowly Air Force. But the Lady Rebels, led by 6-2 forward Linda Froehlich (22.6 ppg), the nation's leading freshman scorer, steady senior point guard Kristen Pool (WAC-leading 6.8 assists per game) and a couple of tough senior post players, Angalete Dye (8.7 ppg, 8.0 rpg) and Liz Wolfe (7.6 ppg, 5.5 rpg), have already quadrupled last year's win total. The Lady Rebels gave No. 4 Colorado State (29-1) all it could handle last week before losing, 75-68.

"We have everything to gain and nothing to lose," Miller said. "Nobody anticipated or expected us to be here at the beginning of the year. We have to not put pressure on ourselves and go out and play our game. I think this team has worked very hard and is getting some rewards for its efforts."

"Anything is possible," Pool said. "Hopefully we peak at tournament time and beat teams and win it. We remember what the men's team did last year."

Hawaii has defeated UNLV seven straight times dating to the 1994-95 season, including twice last year.

"Hopefully we'll be ready to come out and play and try and set the tone with good intensity and good aggression," Miller said.

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