BYU bounces Lady Rebels

Friday, Jan. 14, 2000 | 9:21 a.m.

With a basketball team that is comprised primarily of underclassmen, sometimes a coach has to look hard to find positives in a predominantly negative situation.

Such was the case Thursday night for Lady Rebels head coach Regina Miller in UNLV's Mountain West Conference opener against BYU at the Thomas & Mack.

In a game that was not as close as the 84-75 final score might indicate, about the only positive note for Miller was that her players didn't give up despite trailing BYU by 21 points midway through the second half.

UNLV, outplayed in every facet of the game in the first 30 minutes of the contest, closed to within nine points of the Cougars with 1:29 remaining and got as close as eight with less than a minute left.

"I really liked our hustle and our effort (toward the end of the game) and we didn't quit," Miller said. "We could have lost by 40 tonight if we would have quit, but we didn't.

"I thought we fought at the end, we fought back."

Unfortunately for the Lady Rebels (8-6 overall, 0-1 in the MWC), they couldn't do much of anything right in the beginning as the Cougars (11-3, 1-0) outshot, outrebounded and outhustled their hosts en route to a commanding 21-6 lead after 10 minutes.

Sophomore Linda Frohlich, UNLV's and the conference's leading scorer, was held scoreless through the first 15 minutes of the game and had only five points in the first half.

"At the beginning of the game, we got in too deep and we had to play catch-up all night," Miller said. "We've seen signs of brilliance and we've seen signs of the way we don't want to play -- and we played the way we don't want to play at certain times."

UNLV's freshman guard, Constance Jinks, came off the bench and scored 16 of her team-high 20 points in the second half to spark the Lady Rebels' late rally.

Frohlich also finished strong, scoring 14 points in the final 20 minutes and finishing with 19 points and 16 rebounds.

BYU center Jill Adams led all scorers with 28 points.

UNLV will host Utah Saturday night at 7:35 in the Thomas & Mack.

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