Michigan women's basketball beats UNLV in NCAA tournament, 71-59: Game thread replay
2023 NCAA women's basketball tournament: No. 7-seed Michigan women's basketball (22-9) vs. No. 10 UNLV Rebels (31-2)
Records: No. 6 Michigan (22-9, 11-7 Big Ten); No. 11 UNLV (31-2, 18-0 Mountain West).
Tipoff: 3 p.m. Friday; Pete Maravich Assembly Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
TV: ESPNU.
At stake: Winner faces winner of No. 3 LSU vs. No. 14 Hawaii (5:30 p.m. Friday, ESPN2) on Sunday for spot in Sweet 16.
NCAA history
The Wolverines, 10-10 all-time, are playing in their fifth straight NCAA tournament and coming off an Elite Eight appearance last season. The Rebels, meanwhile, made the tourney last season for the first time since 2002 and are 3-9 all-time; UNLV hasn’t won in the NCAAs since beating Texas Tech in 1991’s first round. (The Rebels then lost to Georgia in the second round.)
Four on the floor
While there are plenty of talented players on both rosters, here are four players — two Wolverines and two Rebels — who could come up big on Friday:
U-M’s star: G Leigha Brown
Brown returned for a fifth season after averaging 18.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game in the shadow of superstar Naz Hillmon. With Hillmon departed this season, Brown stepped up with 18 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.3 steals a game en route to an honorable-mention All-America nod from the Associated Press. Just one of three women to average 18/5/5 this season — the others are Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and Sacramento State’s Kahlaijah Dean (who played at Oakland for four seasons). Brown does most of her work in the paint, shooting 58.2% inside the arc on 263 attempts and 30.2% on 63 attempts behind the line. If Brown is scoring, the Wolverines are tough to stop; they’re 10-3 when she scored at least 20 points. (Though two of those three losses have come with Brown scoring 30 or more.)
Off the bench for U-M: G Jordan Hobbs
The Ohio native actually started the Wolverines final nine games before the NCAA tournament, promoted to the starting lineup after fellow sophomore Laila Phelia was injured on Jan. 29. (Phelia returned in a reserve role for the Wolverines’ two Big Ten tourney games.) Three of Hobbs’ four double-digit scoring games came in that stretch, including a 16-point performance (on 6-for-15 shooting) against Wisconsin on Feb. 26. Hobbs is one of the better 3-point shooters — she connected on 34.7% from beyond the arc — on a team that doesn’t take a lot of them. (Michigan’s 17.7 3-point attempts per game ranked just 216th out of 350 teams, though their 33.8% success rate ranked 75th.)
UNLV’s star: C Desi-Rae Young
Born in California but raised in Las Vegas, the 6-foot-1 Young had just two scholarship offers coming out of high school. (Pepperdine was the other.) Whoops. The social work major was the Mountain West Player of the year last season and made the conference’s first team this season after leading everyone in rebounds (10.2) per game and finishing second in points (18.2) per game. Oh, and she also averaged 2.1 assists and 1.5 steals a game. Young is shooting 59.7% this season, with all but three of her 397 attempts coming inside the arc. (Don’t sleep on her 3-point shooting, though — she made one of those 3 long-distance shots.)
Off the bench for UNLV: G Kiara Jackson
The 5-foot-7 Texas native made a big impression in her second season with UNLV. Jackson is averaging 7.9 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 24.7 minutes a game while shooting 37.3% overall and 30.8% on 3-pointers, earning her Mountain West Sixth Player of the Year honors. She helped the Rebels rebound from their December loss to Oklahoma State, in which they played without stars Alyssa Brown and Nneka Obiazor, with 21 points in 29 minutes off the bench against Northern Arizona and 20 points as a starter in 33 minutes a week later against Wyoming. Jackson also put up 18 points on 6-for-14 shooting last month against Air Force.
Ryan Ford’s prediction
Despite the disappointment of losing in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals (to Ohio State, no less), the extra time off is probably the Wolverines’ best friend, allowing Laila Phelia to fully heal and a U-M squad that lost four of its past six. Bet on Phelia to come up big, with fifth-year forward Emily Kiser, who averaged 16.8 points and 8.2 boards over that span, as an insurance plan. The pick: U-M 75, UNLV 67.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan women beat UNLV in NCAA tournament, 71-59: Game thread
