Lady Rebels using last season’s MW tourney loss as motivation

The Lady Rebels were less than a minute from finishing off a furious comeback.

They charged back from a 20-point deficit, cutting Fresno State’s lead to just two points with 27 seconds left.

It wasn’t quite enough. Fresno State hung on to win 66-60, ending UNLV’s run in the Mountain West tournament.

Tears flowed in the Lady Rebels’ locker room.

“We said, ‘We need to remember this feeling because we don’t ever want to feel that again,’ ” junior guard Dakota Gonzalez said. “We used that as motivation, I think, throughout the entire season. But now, being here, it’s especially motivating.”

A year later, the Lady Rebels (21-9, 12-6 MW) enter the Mountain West tournament with that loss in the back of their minds as they prepare to take on Utah State (17-13, 9-9 MW) at 8:30 p.m Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Utah State beat Air Force 46-40 Monday night while the Lady Rebels, the No. 3 seed, had a bye into the second round and watched from inside the arena.

Just a week ago, the Lady Rebels fell to the Aggies 58-49 on the road. There was a lot about that game they disliked.

They didn’t shoot well, they never got into an offensive flow and that disrupted them defensively. Guard Brooke Johnson said they didn’t play physically enough, and the list goes on.

The Lady Rebels also played the Aggies earlier in the season, defeating them 55-53 in overtime at Cox Pavilion.

Tempers flared in that game as UNLV’s Katie Powell and Utah State’s Antoina Robinson got into a fight. Three other players from each team were ejected for leaving the bench.

But with that far in the rearview mirror, the Lady Rebels are focusing on making a run, which starts Tuesday.

“They’re long, they can run the floor and they play an up-and-down style so we have to come out that first game and bring Lady Rebel basketball to the Mountain West tournament,” coach Kathy Olivier said. “Play hard, grind on the defensive end and get the ball moving on the offensive end. They’re a little more unorthodox, too, so you have to be ready if it’s trapping or different zones and man, so they do a little of everything.”

The Lady Rebels will go into this year’s game with the added benefit of experience — and an off day Monday while Utah State played.

“I think that what we learned last year is being able to just continue to fight through fatigue, continuing to fight through adversity. The tournament is just a whole different ballgame,” junior guard Dylan Gonzalez said. “You play game after game after game and so when you get into that mentality, you don’t really have as much time to rest, you don’t really have as much time to prepare.”

The Lady Rebels enter the tournament off one of their most successful regular seasons in recent memory.

But Olivier says her team wasn’t satisfied — the Lady Rebels wanted to win the Mountain West.

“They’re mad that we didn’t win the whole thing, which is very interesting to me because I’m like ‘Hey, this is good,’ but you know what, they have really high goals and really high expectations and they’ve been like that all year,” Olivier said.

Those expectations haven’t waned as they enter the postseason.

The Lady Rebels have a chance to wrap up the conference’s automatic bid if they win the tournament. It would be their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002.

“When we’re focused, we can play everybody and we’re going to give everyone a game, so that’s our goal is to just be focused and ready to play,” Olivier said.

Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.