Friday, March 18, 2005 | 9:59 a.m.
They traveled like a team in the red-headed stepchild of postseason tournaments, but the Lady Rebels are certainly feeling an NCAA tournament atmosphere in Arkansas.
The 35 people in the UNLV traveling party left Las Vegas at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday on a flight to Denver, where they waited out a 5-hour layover to board a commuter jet to fly to Little Rock, Ark. The fun didn't end there, though, because a 3-hour bus ride to Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas, awaited the group.
The weary Lady Rebels finally reached their hotel at 1 a.m. Central time on Thursday, but when they arrived for practice today, they found three TV crews and numerous print reporters waiting to talk about tonight's first-round Women's National Invitation Tournament game against the Lady Razorbacks.
All that attention for a WNIT opening-round game? It appears that UNLV (16-14) may just find a slice of the big-time environment it thought it missed by losing a heartbreaker to New Mexico in the Mountain West tournament semifinals.
Coach Regina Miller's group decided to accept an invitation to the WNIT for the third consecutive season, though, and she feels her players are ready to try to duplicate last year's run to the tournament final.
"I think it's possible," Miller said. "We have to create some luck for ourselves and hopefully catch some breaks. We have to just keep focused, and maybe we'll get some breaks."
The Lady Rebels won three home games in last year's WNIT before upsetting Iowa State in Ames, Iowa. They lost at Creighton in the tournament championship.
The road back begins with Arkansas (16-13), which struggled through Southeastern Conference play to a 3-11 record. The Lady Razorbacks have lost four of their past five games, but all of the losses came against teams ranked in the national top 20.
Arkansas is a tough home team, having lost just four times at Walton Court this season. Two of those defeats came against teams national powers Tennessee and Louisiana State. Community support is strong as well, with the Lady Razorbacks averaging more than 3,000 fans per game at home.
For a UNLV squad with a poor 2-7 road record - and the wins came at lowly Detroit and Air Force - that means the path to postseason success is decidedly more difficult this season than it was in 2003-04.
"I just think we've got to refocus, just focus on the opportunity to play deep into March," Miller said. "That's where we're at now. We're one of the few teams that can play deep into March, and it takes a special player to want to keep practicing and playing late into March."
UNLV and Arkansas play similar styles, trying to disrupt opponents on defense to create easy scoring opportunities in transition. The Lady Razorbacks rank fourth in the nation at 12.8 steals per game and they force 23.7 turnovers per game.
If the Lady Rebels win tonight, they are likely to remain in the South for their second-round game, as they would be scheduled to play first-round winner Arkansas State and the tournament is not likely to make both teams travel to Las Vegas to play.
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