Lady Rebels falter down the stretch

Friday, Jan. 24, 2003 | 10:08 a.m.

UNLV women's basketball coach Regina Miller's plea for mental toughness rang off the walls of her team's locker room inside Cox Pavilion late Thursday night.

The Lady Rebels had just crumbled in the final seven minutes of a 56-49 loss to Utah, but UNLV also made the Utes' defense look sterling by sinking only 30.5 percent (18 of 59) of its attempts from the field.

"Miss chippies and layups," Miller said, "and that helps (the Utes') stats."

Kim Smith led Utah (13-3, 3-0 in the Mountain West Conference) with 20 points, and all 12 of her second-half points came on 3-point shots. She also nailed one in the first half, and she ended 5-for-10 from beyond the arc.

A 6-foot-1 freshman forward from Mission, British Columbia, Smith entered the game shooting 47.3 percent from 3-point range, fifth-best in the nation and No. 2 in the Mountain West.

She also led the Utes with 17.1 points a game, an average she improved upon against the Rebels. She said those final eight minutes were keyed by Utah's defense on UNLV scoring ace Constance Jinks, who missed all three jumpers she tried in that span.

"We know Constance is a great player, and we knew we had to shut her down," Smith said. "We had good ball pressure and good help defense."

Despite shooting 4-for-13 from the field and not scoring again after converting a layup 2 minutes, 3 seconds into the second half, Jinks led the Rebels with 14 points.

UNLV (10-5, 1-1) tied it, 45-45, when forward Sherry McCracklin put in her own miss. Then the Lady Rebels, especially their interior game, disappeared, not scoring for 6 1/2 minutes. By then, Utah had scored seven unanswered points to secure the victory.

"Being down seven points to Utah is like being down 14 or 15 points," Miller said of her foes, famous for their plodding style and penchant for whittling shot clocks to their final ticks.

McCracklin went 3-for-10 from the field, with two close misses and a turnover coming during that scoring drought. Her sister, Dishawn, a center, missed a 1-footer and also committed a turnover during that poor stretch.

"It's player one through five, all five players on the floor," Jinks said. "We have to make shots. We had the defensive stops, we just couldn't convert on offense at all. We could have won easily, we just didn't do anything on offense."