Monday, March 15, 2004 | 9:27 a.m.
Who: Arizona State at UNLV
When: WNIT first round
When: Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Cox Pavilion
Radio: KSFN, 1400-AM
Maybe a WNIT game isn't exactly a lovely parting gift for a team that won 22 games during the regular season. But at least the Lady Rebels won't have to go far to collect it.
UNLV Sunday night accepted a second consecutive bid to the Little Dance as they'll host Arizona State (17-11) of the Pacific-10 at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Cox Pavilion. The winner will play the survivor of the Rice-Arkansas State game, with the site and date to be determined.
It will be the second year in a row that the Lady Rebels (22-7) will face a Pac-10 team in their WNIT opener. Last year, they lost 77-58 at Oregon State in what was less than a pleasant experience.
"Let's just say it was pretty tough," UNLV coach Regina Miller said, recalling last year's trip to Corvallis.
While Miller had her fingers crossed that the Lady Rebels might somehow still receive an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament, she knew it was a long shot at best.
"I really thought they might take two (from the Mountain West), and maybe even three," she said about sitting down to watch the selection show on Sunday. "But then they took UCLA and Missouri and Iowa, which were all bubble teams, and then when N.C. State made it at 17-14 ... "
Miller knew it would only be a matter of time before the WNIT called. But she was happy to accept the invitation.
"I believe it's important for a young team like ours to keep playing," she said, "if for no other reason to develop a mind set for playing at this time of the year.
"If this team was more senior-heavy, I might give them more of an option on what they'd like to do. But with our youth and the schedule we'll have next year, it's important we continue to play as hard as we can."
The NCAA tournament selection committee showed the Mountain West little respect as only New Mexico, which tied Utah for the regular-season championship but then went on to rout the Utes in Saturday's conference tournament championship game, got in. The Lobos will play Florida on their home floor at The Pit in Albuquerque on Saturday.
Utah was snubbed despite sharing the regular-season MWC crown and posting a solid RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) of 38. The Utes were the highest-ranked RPI team that did not make the field of 64 and turned down a bid to play in the WNIT. Colorado State joined the Lady Rebels in accepting a WNIT bid and will host Creighton Friday.
It would appear that the way the at-large bids fell in both the women's and men's NCAA brackets, conference RPI is nearly as important as team RPI. That might explain why the MWC got only one of its women's teams in while three men's teams made it.
The Mountain West ranked only 11th among the 34 women's conferences in RPI but a solid seventh among the men.
The Lady Rebels are rated No. 67 in RPI but their strength of schedule -- still the best way to improve their power ranking -- is just 152nd among the NCAA's 324 basketball-playing schools.
UNLV played only one game against a top-40 RPI team and that was Utah, which it beat once in three tries. The Lady Rebels also beat No. 44 Richmond, lost to No. 48 Loyola-Marymount, lost to No. 51 UCLA and beat No. 59 Mississippi State.
But it also should be noted that beefing up a schedule, especially for schools playing in isolated mid-major conferences such as the Mountain West, is easier said than done.
Only four teams from the Mountain or West Coast time zones -- Utah, Montana, Arizona and Stanford -- finished among the Top 40 in RPI, meaning that teams in this part of the country must literally go a long way to improve their schedules. Very few teams in the power conferences are willing to play Mountain West teams on their home floor. But if the message to MWC teams is to improve your schedule, the Lady Rebels are hearing it loud and clear. Their non-conference schedule next year includes NCAA tournament teams Minnesota, North Carolina and Villanova along with Michigan of the Big Ten, Iowa State of the Big 12 and South Carolina of the prestigious Southeast Conference. "Half of our non-conference schedule is against power conferences, but you can't do that when you have a real young team," Miller said, explaining this year's soft schedule.
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