Lady Rebels hope to stay sharp vs. CSNU

Monday, Dec. 18, 2000 | 10:09 a.m.

UNLV women's basketball coach Regina Miller is more concerned about the Lady Rebels than Cal State Northridge going into Tuesday night's nonconference game against the Matadors at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Having won six of their first seven games, the Lady Rebels are off to their best start since the 1992-93 season and feature one of the best players in the country in junior forward Linda Frohlich.

But after having the last nine days off since beating Eastern Washington on Dec. 9, Miller is concerned about how her players will react to playing competitively after such a prolonged layoff.

"We're trying to get them geared up to play competitively again," Miller said. "I want them to start to get sharp again. We need to tune up after exams week and the time off."

Northridge will bring a 3-4 record into Tuesday's 7 p.m. contest, but Miller is worried that the Matadors' quickness may catch up to the Lady Rebels if they're not on their games.

"Teams like Northridge are good, athletic teams ... and they're not far behind us," Miller said. "If you go into that game and you're not sharp ... you can play a sloppy game. We have to be mentally sharp and execute.

"They like to run, they're going to try to play up-tempo and we like to control the tempo as much as possible. We want to hold onto the ball offensively and force them to play defense and not take crummy shots."

Miller has been happy with her team's offensive performance so far this season but said she would like to see her players do a better job rebounding the ball on defense.

"We're leading the conference in field-goal percentage and I think it's very important for us to do a better job on the defensive boards," she said.

"We have shot the ball pretty well this year, so if we can continue to shoot the ball the way we have, I'm not as concerned about offensive rebounds but on the defensive end, we can only give them one shot."

Miller said she expects Frohlich, UNLV's leading scorer each of the past two seasons, to be close to full strength after breaking a thumb in practice earlier this month.

Frohlich, who averaged 22.5 points a game in her first two seasons with the Lady Rebels, is averaging 17 points and 6.5 rebounds in four games. The 6-2 German native missed three games last month while competing for the German National Team in the European Championships.

Frohlich scored 24 points, grabbed six rebounds and added seven assists in the Lady Rebels' 81-72 victory over Eastern Washington.

Sophomore guard Constance Jinks and freshman center Petra Glaser also have been keys to the Lady Rebels offense, averaging 14.9 and 13.4 points a game, respectively.

Miller, who picked up her 100th career coaching win against Eastern Michigan and has a 40-24 record in two-plus seasons at UNLV, said the key to UNLV's success Tuesday will be how her players come back after the 10-day layoff.

"We have to be mentally sharp," Miller said. "We have really emphasized trying to eliminate the unforced turnovers that we have had. This is a key time for us; we really want to tune things up going into January and our conference opener against Utah (on Jan. 11)."

Brian Hilderbrand is a Las Vegas Sun sportswriter. Reach him at bh@ lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.