Lady Rebels share the load at small forward

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004 | 9:57 a.m.

Every basketball team has role players, but not every team has role players who accept them.

The ones that do, as the Lady Rebels have proven, often become good basketball teams.

Other than their jersey numbers and that one starts while the other comes off the bench, there's not much difference between Nikki Hitchens and Kameca Simmons, who split time at small forward for UNLV.

Hitchens, a 5-foot-10 sophomore from Las Vegas' Silverado High School, is averaging 22 minutes, six points and four rebounds. Simmons, a 5-9 freshman from Compton, Calif., is averaging 19 minutes, six points and three rebounds. Hitchens has made .421 of her field-goal attempts, Simmons .435. Both are solid defenders who prefer slashing to the basket over taking jump shots.

"I have to agree that they are very similar players," said UNLV coach Regina Miller said as the Lady Rebels continued preparing for the dreaded Front Range road trip to Wyoming and Colorado State on Thursday and Saturday.

"Both are penetrators who like to drive the basketball and both need to continue to develop their outside shots. The only difference is that one is a sophomore and one is a freshman."

Both, as noted, also have accepted their secondary roles which goes a long way toward explaining why the Lady Rebels (17-4, 6-2 Mountain West) are winning and enjoying each other's company while doing it.

Team chemistry is not to be taken lightly, especially at this time of the year. The Lady Rebels basically feature a seven-player rotation, with forwards RanDee Henry and Sherry McCracklin and guard Sheena Moore, their potent "Big Three," serving as headliners with point guard InFini Robinson, Hitchens, Simmons and guard Nejlah Clark forming a solid supporting cast.

All get along famously, although that's not to say there hasn't been an attitude adjustment here and there.

"Coach Miller has been talking a long time about my role ... but it's just been recently that I think I came to realize what my role is," Hitchens said. "Now I'm finally starting to get it.

"All my life I've been a scorer and offensive minded and (playing a lesser role) messed me all up. My offense wasn't coming to me and I started slowly ... now I'm buying into it."

It, in her case, is playing defense and rebounding and picking up an offensive table scrap or two that Henry, McCracklin and Moore leave behind.

But if you don't think Hitchens, who started her college career at Texas-Pan American, is central to the Lady Rebels' game plan, guess again. When UNLV went against Mountain West pacesetter Utah recently, it was she who drew the tough assignment of guarding Kim Smith, last year's conference player of the year.

She didn't do all that well, as Smith schooled her as she has everyone else in the league. But at least Miller had the confidence in Hitchens to match her against the Mountain West's best player.

"It was a good learning experience for her and she played against a great player that game," Miller said.

Simmons, who grew up in an athletic family of 11 siblings (she has football-playing brothers at Southern Cal and Kansas State with a third headed to Cal in the fall) plays against three excellent players in practice every day.

With Henry, McCracklin and Moore entrenched as the offensive stars and Simmons just getting her career started, she doesn't seem in quite the hurry to become an impact player.

"Maybe next year," she said with a wide grin.

"This summer, I'm really going to work on my shot. Maybe I'll even get to play the point a little bit.

"My role, coming in as a freshman, is to learn the system, learn the plays. We've got a lot of good scorers, so I don't have to shoot as much."

LADY REBELS NOTES: The Lady Rebels' 6-2 Mountain West Conference mark is their best ever after eight league games. UNLV has never finished higher than third in the regular-season standings. ... Wyoming (8-14, 4-5) slipped to 4-5 in conference play following losses at BYU (67-50) and Utah (59-45) last weekend. After winning 4 of 5 conference games to briefly battle into contention, the Cowgirls have lost three in a row. ... Colorado State (13-9, 4-5) is coming off an impressive 72-64 victory at still-struggling BYU Saturday, the Rams' first road win of the season. Jasai Ferrucho paced the CSU victory by handing out 14 assists, the second-highest total in MWC history.