UNLV women approaching NCAA Tournament game as new normal

Wade Vandervort

The UNLV Lady Rebels laugh in the locker room at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion Friday, March 22, 2024, in Los Angeles.

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Friday, March 22, 2024 | 3:58 p.m.

LOS ANGELES — 

A four-day road trip? A showdown between two Top 25 teams? A real opportunity to notch the program’s first NCAA Tournament win in more than two decades?

This is all normal, according to Lindy La Rocque.

The No. 20 UNLV women’s basketball team went through its final preparations ahead of Saturday’s first-round tournament game against No. 24 Creighton (4 p.m., ESPNews), holding a 90-minute practice at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus on Friday afternoon. Despite the stakes and the dramatic build-up, UNLV’s head coach wants it to feel like any other game.

And to hear La Rocque and her players tell it, that’s how it should be.

“We’re pretty comfortable,” La Rocque said. “Not in a bad way, but that we know we belong and we want to keep playing.”

UNLV has won 15 straight games, three consecutive Mountain West championships (regular season and tournament) and is making its third NCAA appearance in as many years. That experience is something La Rocque wants to lean into as tipoff approaches, trusting her veteran lineup to not be overwhelmed by the moment.

Senior center Desi-Rae Young, the two-time Mountain West Player of the Year, was her usual ebullient self at practice, bouncing to the music and joking with La Rocque during warmups. That attitude is exactly what La Rocque wants to see.

Young said the team’s two previous trips to the tournament have made the experience feel routine.

“I’ve been here before, so I don’t think it really feels that much different,” Young said.

Junior point guard Kiara Jackson echoed that statement.

“I don’t think it’s any different,” Jackson said. “We have some experience being here for the third time, so I just think we’re going to try to do what we do and come out here and win.”

Despite what the team says, the actual logistics of the trip have been unlike prior tourney runs. The NCAA flew UNLV to Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon, and the game against Creighton is one of the latest scheduled first-round matchups, giving the team four days and three nights before tipoff.

That’s a long time to be away from home, cooped up in a hotel, waiting to play perhaps the most important game in program history, so the team has tried to maintain a sense of normality during their down time.

The players have spent the past few days logging study-hall hours and watching NCAA Tournament buzzer-beaters, as they would if they were kicking back at home. Junior forward Alyssa Brown finished up some schoolwork just before the start of practice.

Brown said that for the personalities that make up this UNLV team, treating this like a normal game is the right approach.

“I think everyone’s excited, but we know we need to calm our nerves and take care of business,” Brown said.

Brown cited herself and Young as “rah-rah” types before and during games, while pointing to junior guard Alyssa Durazo-Frescas as a key level-headed voice when the team needs a calming influence.

Durazo-Frescas, a Los Angeles native, held court in the locker room before Friday’s practice, happy to discuss local sights and hot spots. But when talk turned to the game itself, she made it clear the Scarlet and Gray are not here to soak up sunny SoCal vibes — they’re here to win.

“Me and my junior class, we’ve been here for three years now,” Durazo-Frescas said. “It’s emotional to us. Stakes are high and we want to do really well. We’re very locked in. We’re very focused.”

La Rocque said she wants her squad to play its game on Saturday and avoid the kind of miscues that can come from trying to do too much. That’s the tone she has tried to strike in meetings and practices since the team arrived in Los Angeles, and that’s going to be the message she delivers before UNLV takes the court.

Brown said La Rocque always hits the right notes when addressing the team.

“She’s really big on motivating us and making sure we play inspired,” Brown said. “She’s very inspirational. She knows exactly what to say to this group to get us focused and get us a little riled up so that we want to play hard, but not too riled up.”

La Rocque gave a preview of her pregame speech on Friday, emphasizing that Creighton is a good opponent, but one that UNLV can beat.

The key, she said, will be treating it like any other game.

“We have to play the game. We’re not playing this moment. We just have to play the game. To be honest, that’s going to be my message before the game tomorrow: It’s another game.

“It’s a big game, sure,” La Rocque continued, “but we don’t have to do anything that we haven’t done all year long. We have to play hard, we have to play together, we have to fight for and with each other. The moment will take care of itself.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.