LAS VEGAS — The Thomas & Mack Center crowd couldn’t help the home team Tuesday.
Fifth-seeded Utah took out the eighth-seeded UNLV women’s basketball team 55-44 in the first round of the Mountain West Conference tournament.
First-year head coach Anthony Levrets earned his first MWC tournament victory, after replacing former head coach Elaine Elliott who took a leave of absence before the season started.
Three days after losing to UNLV 51-47 in Vegas, the Utes bounced back to advance, and they’ll face ninth-seeded Air Force today.
Levrets said league play can be frustrating because everyone knows everyone’s style.
“I thought our kids really battled,” he said. “We just played this team on Saturday, and we lost to them. This time of year, you know every team that you play, and they know you well …We knew it was going to be a dogfight.”
The game tied at 42 with 2:08 left, Utah’s Iwalani Rodrigues hit a 3-pointer to put the Utes up 45-42. Utah never looked back.
Rodrigues said she knew the shot was going in.
“It was really big, and I’m happy it went in,” she said. “Anthony always tells me I’m a shooter, and there was a point in time when I made so many, then you miss. So I just went back to the 3-point line and started and it fell.”
Junior guard Janita Badon finished with 10 points and 17 rebounds.
“I saw how hard my teammates were playing and I just wanted to do the same,” she said.
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