UNLV LADY REBELS BEGINS MW CHAMPIONSHIP PLAY MONDAY
Fifth-seed Lady Rebels open the 2020 tournament with a rematch against fourth-seed San Jose State in a quarterfinal contest
2020 MW Women’s Basketball Championships Central |
2020 MW Women’s Basketball Championship Bracket
The UNLV women’s basketball team will be the fifth seed in next week’s 2020 Air Force Reserve Mountain West Women’s Basketball Championships, which will be held at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas from March 1-4. UNLV finished a tie for fifth place with San Diego State as both teams posted 9-9 conference marks, but the Lady Rebels held the tiebreaker thanks to their 1-1 record against the second-seed Boise State, who the Aztecs were 0-2 against this season.
UNLV (13-16 overall) will open the tournament in the quarterfinals on Monday at 2:30 pm against fourth-seed San Jose State. The winner of Monday’s contest will advance to the semifinals on Tuesday. The Mountain West Network will produce and broadcast live streams of the first nine women’s basketball tournament games. These games will be available on the Mountain West Network at TheMW.com. The championship game will be shown live on CBS Sports Network.
The Lady Rebels have faced San Jose State once before in Mountain West Tournament play, as the seventh-seeded Lady Rebels held off the 10th-seed Spartans 78-75 in the first round of the 2014 tournament. UNLV was swept by the Spartans this season, a last-second loss to the Spartans in San Jose on Jan. 15, and a 13-point home loss to SJSU Thursday night. This is the fourth time in tournament play the Lady Rebels’ first tournament was a rematch of their season finale. UNLV has gone 2-2 in such games in tournament play, with the last occurance coming in the 2011 tournament when UNLV fell to Utah 55-44 in the first round. The Lady Rebels are also 20-3 all-time against SJSU in Las Vegas, with one of the three losses coming this season.
The Lady Rebels are 9-10 in their first game of the tournament, which for the first eight years of the conference was their quarterfinal contest, before three years of a double-bye system. UNLV is 7-14 all-time as the lower seed in the MW Tournament.
This is the Lady Rebels’ sixth time as a No. 5 seed in the MW Tournament. UNLV was the fifth seed in the inaugural tournament in 2000, and again in 2001, 2005, 2015 and 2019. UNLV advanced to the semifinals as a No. 5 seed in both 2000 and 2005, where it eventually fell to the No. 1 seed both times.
Kathy Olivier, in her 11-year as the Lady Rebels’ head coach, is 6-11 all-time with UNLV in the MW Tournament, while the Lady Rebels have an 12-20 (.375) tournament record. UNLV has advanced to the championship game once (2002), and has eight semifinal appearances in the 19-year history of the league.
The tournament starts with the first round on Sunday, March 1 with games at 2, 4:30 and 7 pm. Quarterfinal action begins on Monday, March 2 (12, 2:30, 6 and 8:30 pm), the semifinals are on Tuesday, March 3 (6, 8:30 pm) with the championship slated for Wednesday, March 4 at 7 pm. The winner of the tournament will receive the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
All-session and single-session tickets for the 2020 Mountain West Women’s Basketball Championship are now on sale at the Thomas & Mack Center box office, online at UNLVTickets.com or by calling 702-739-FANS.