Gonzalez twins add to new look for Lady Rebels
The Gonzalez twins — UNLV sophomores Dakota and Dylan — have more than 1.5 million combined followers on Instagram.
If their basketball skills are anywhere near as explosive as their social media numbers, the Lady Rebels might defy expectations and produce their first winning season in four years. But that would be asking a lot of the sisters, who sat out last season after transferring from Kansas, and of a young UNLV team that lost its top two scorers from last season's 13-17 squad.
"It's scary," Lady Rebels coach Kathy Olivier said of the challenge of replacing the only players to average double figures in scoring last season in Danielle Miller (18.5) and Alana Cesarz (15.9). "We lost a lot.
"We're more of a team this year," Olivier added during UNLV's media day Wednesday at Cox Pavilion. "It's not going to be one or two players, it's going to be scoring by committee. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad. Hopefully, it will work for us."
Picked to finish fifth in the Mountain West preseason poll, UNLV returns three starters in sophomore guards Brooke Johnson and Nikki Wheatley — a 2014-15 MW All-Freshman selection — and senior center Aley Rohde, one of only two upperclassmen on the team along with senior center Amie Callaway.
"I'm the only person on this team that's over the age of 21," said the 6-foot-4-inch Rohde, who averaged 8.8 points and 7.2 rebounds last season. "We're a very, very young team, so we have a lot to prove. But I think we'll surprise people."
Along with Rohde and Callaway, who averaged 5.3 points and 5.4 rebounds last season, the Lady Rebels will look for production from Wheatley and Johnson, who combined to average 12.8 points, 7.6 rebounds and five assists as freshmen.
"I think we will be better than last year," Wheatley said. "Just because of our camaraderie and people like me and Brooke getting a year under our belt, and having two experienced seniors in the post. I feel like our posts are going to dominate. And nobody's really seen the twins play.
"They're going to be really good. They're going to surprise people. They have a lot of different skill sets. They can shoot, they can drive and they're going to be really hard to guard."
A pair of high-energy 6-foot guards who can score and defend, the Gonzalez twins each earned first-team all-state honors at Pocatello, Idaho's Highland High School, where Dakota set the school record with 2,311 career points.
At Kansas, Dakota played in 30 games for the Jayhawks as a freshman in 2013-14, averaging 4.4 points and two rebounds, while Dylan was limited to nine games by hernia surgery.
After sitting out a season, the sisters are raring to go.
"My expectation is to come in here and just give it my all every game and go as hard as I can," Dakota said. "Honestly, one of my personal goals is to never be outworked, and hopefully that will be enough to have a winning season this year."
The Lady Rebels lost two players to season-ending injuries in the preseason in sophomore forward Alyssa Anderson and junior guard Diamond Major. They will feature three freshmen in Destiny Lee, Jordyn Bell and Liberty High product Paris Strawther.
UNLV also features Jazmin O'Bannon, a Liberty High graduate and the daughter of former UCLA star Ed O'Bannon. The sophomore walk-on will sit out this season after transferring from Utah Valley.
The Lady Rebels host Alaska-Anchorage at 7 p.m. Monday in an exhibition game at Cox Pavilion before opening their season Nov. 14 against Southern Utah at the Thomas & Mack Center.
"Getting that (fifth-place preseason) ranking motivates us to want to push and surpass that," Dakota Gonzalez said. "I think we can go beyond that and really push for a Mountain West title."
— Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow him on Twitter: @tdewey33
