Motown connection

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 10:07 a.m.

During a recent game against Brigham Young, an enthusiastic UNLV fan celebrated a Lady Rebels fastbreak basket by exclaiming "Attaway, Motown!"

And half the team looked up to acknowledge him.

The sequence began when Nejlah Clark, from Detroit's Martin Luther King Jr. High School, pressured one of the Cougars into taking a bad shot.

RanDee Henry, from Detroit's Renaissance High, pulled down the rebound and made an outlet pass to Sheena Moore, from Everett High School in Lansing, Mich.

Moore passed to InFini Robinson, from Detroit's Oak Park High School, who fed Henry, filling the lane, for a layup.

And Latosha Pace, an injured reserve who also prepped at Martin Luther King, led the cheers from her seat on the bench.

That three of the Lady Rebels' five starters, one of their top substitutes and a potential future standout all hail from the same stretch of Interstate 96 in southeastern Michigan is no coincidence.

When UNLV coach Regina Miller wanted to add a little toughness to the Lady Rebels' lineup, she knew where to look. She put on her hard hat, packed a sandwich in her lunch pail and headed for the Highland Park area just north and east of downtown Detroit.

"It started back when I was an assistant coach at Old Dominion," Miller said of recruiting the Motor City. "I had built a pretty good rapport with the high school coaches way back then and then when we went to the NCAA tournament at Western Illinois (Miller's first head coaching stop), our best player was from Detroit.

"You look at Martin Luther King, where we got Nejlah and Latosha. Year after year, they're one of the best teams in that area."

This year, King is 24-0 and ranked No. 13 in the nation by USA Today.

"When you come from a strong, winning program like that, you (develop) that toughness that comes in handy down the stretch," Miller said.

But that's not to say that Miller wasn't a little lucky in landing UNLV's version of Michigan's Fab Five.

She had recruited Robinson, the Lady Rebels' point guard and the only senior in the starting lineup (she'll graduate with honors this spring), hard out of high school, only to be disappointed when she signed with Michigan.

"UNLV was one of my five visits," Robinson said. "But Michigan recruited me, too, and growing up in Michigan, going there was always a dream."

Robinson was a key backup on two Wolverines NCAA tournament teams before a coaching shakeup clouded her future.

"Coach Miller said she still wanted me so I came out here," said Robinson, who scored a career-high 24 points, including 6-of-7 from 3-point distance, against San Diego State on Jan 17. "It's been good for me ever since."

Robinson became an ambassador for the Lady Rebels on the summer basketball circuit back home, where she gave Henry, among others, the UNLV sales pitch.

After spending two seasons at Detroit Mercy where she was the leading scorer, Henry, a 6-foot-1 junior forward, also transferred to UNLV, where she has reprised that role. Her 19.5 scoring average leads the Mountain West Conference, and she is expected to challenge Utah's Kim Smith for player of the year honors.

Moore, Clark and Pace were sort of a package deal for Miller. All played for the same AAU team, Michigan Crossover.

Moore, a 5-7 sophomore guard, is averaging 15.4 points. She would be getting even more attention were it not for Henry and Sherry McCracklin, the other prongs of the Lady Rebels' "Big Three," who are being touted for All-American honors.

Clark, a 5-11 pre-med major studying to become a plastic surgeon, is UNLV's defensive specialist. She averages 16 minutes per game and has been known to pick up her opponent when the visitors' bus rolls into the parking lot at Cox Pavilion.

Pace, a 5-10 freshman guard, hasn't played since the holidays when she suffered a concussion in an auto accident. If doctors don't clear her soon, she may redshirt to retain her four years' of eligibility.

After practice Wednesday, the five Michigan natives formed an assembly line to talk about things like pride and passion and whatever else it is that makes inner-city players special.

"It's an attitude," Henry said.

"There's a certain aura about being from Detroit," Robinson added. "It's about being tough, being aggressive."

Especially when the chips are down.

"You say, 'I'm from Detroit. I've been through much worse than this ," Clark said, as the group broke into laughter recalling their blue-collar upbringing.

The five Lady Rebels got more animated as the conversation continued, needling one another about their high schools and summer teams and the talents of their basketball-playing fathers. (Henry's dad, Randy, was a star at Illinois State who was drafted by the hometown Pistons while Clark's father, David, played at Wyoming.)

They talked about the back of the team bus, the Detroit section, where they like to talk trash.

They professed loyalty for their hometown pro sports teams (even the Tigers), recalling how proud they were to attend the parade for the Stanley Cup-champion Red Wings.

"It was just nice to see somebody from Detroit finally win something," Henry said.

And when a reporter asked for a show of hands about who among the group, raised in the hip-hop generation, were familiar with the Four Tops, they all but launched into the chorus of "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch."

Being from Motown, they couldn't help themselves.

"That's something we're brought up with in school. Berry Gordy and Hitsville, USA," Henry said of the famous Motown Studios situated on West Grand Boulevard in her hometown."When you live in Detroit, that's where you go on field trips."

It wasn't the Same Old Song for Moore, who grew up down the interstate in Lansing. Having attended the same high school, Lansing Everett, as Magic Johnson, she was influenced by a different kind of artist.

When she teasingly was asked who had more pictures on the gymnasium wall, Moore was quick to respond.

"He does -- for now," she said. "But give me two more years. By the time I'm finished, my picture will be right up there next to his."

Even in Lansing, they've got Dee-troit attitude.

LADY REBELS NOTES: The Lady Rebels (16-4, 5-2) return to Mountain West Conference play at 5 p.m. Saturday at San Diego State (7-13, 2-5). UNLV has won eight in a row in the series, including a 76-58 victory at Cox Pavilion Jan. 17. ... After winning 10 consecutive games and 14 of 15, the Lady Rebels have dropped two of their past three, sandwiching a 77-64 win against BYU between a 70-66 loss at New Mexico and Sunday's 72-55 defeat at the hands of first-place Utah. That was UNLV's only home loss.