The UNLV Lady Rebels advance to the second round of the Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament with a 63-46 win against Hawai’i on Thursday night at the Cox Pavillion.
This marks the first postseason win since the 2003-04 season when UNLV made a championship run in the WNIT.
Meadow Roland led the Lady Rebels scoring 16 points off the bench. Roland went 7-for-13 from the floor and 1-for-2 from the free-throw line.
Amarachi Kimpson was second in scoring with 14 points. Macy Spencer came off the bench to add 10 points shooting 3-for-6 from the floor and 2-for-2 from the free-throw line.
McKinna Brackens led the Lady Rebels grabbing 12 rebounds for the night.
Lily Wahinekapu led the Rainbow Wahine scoring 18 points.
The Lady Rebels kept the momentum against the Rainbow Wahine for most of the game. They closed out the third quarter with a 15-point lead, 44-29.
In the post-game press conference, coach Lindy La Rocque said, “First, congratulations to Hawai’i on a tremendous season. They did the hard thing, similar to us, winning the regular season and then came up short in the conference (Big West) tournament. We definitely know how that feels. They’ve won five of their last eight championships. Just a tremendous program. They are going to be a familiar opponent here soon and I’m excited for that because Coach (Laura) Beeman does a great job. I’m really proud of our group, in particular our rebounding effort and we out-rebounded them. I think everyone can see how big they are and to out-rebound them by 21, that’s won us the game. It eliminated their second chance points, and it gave us some second chances offensively. They are a very good defensive team. I look at 63 points and I’m like that didn’t feel that great offensively, but it got the job done. To hold Hawai’i under 50 points is pretty good for our group.”
The Lady Rebels advance to take on Florida on Sunday at 2pm PT at the Cox Pavillion.
