Kiara Jackson doesn’t know much about losing.
The UNLV senior point guard, like the rest of her recruiting class, won four straight Mountain West regular-season titles and three straight conference tournament championships before the latter half of that streak ended this year.
As a chapter of dominance nears a close for the Lady Rebels, her story stands out.
The Grand Prairie, Texas, native never thought she’d leave her home state, then decided to commit to UNLV and made an instant impact as the first recruit of what would begin the program’s winningest four-year run.
“She was the very first one, and a big catalyst for all of our success,” assistant coach Roman Owen said. “I’m glad we got her.”
Jackson and the Lady Rebels (25-7) will try to continue their season when they host Big West regular-season champion Hawaii (22-9) in the first round of the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Cox Pavilion.
Jackson made an instant impact in her first year and kept growing, earning Mountain West Sixth Woman of the Year as a sophomore. As a junior in 2024, she earned first-team all-conference honors while leading the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio at 3.49.
She was even more efficient en route to the same recognition this year, with her assist-to-turnover ratio (3.67) beaten only by UConn superstar Paige Bueckers (3.9).
But for the first time in her collegiate career, Jackson won’t make an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. That tradition was thwarted when San Diego State beat the Lady Rebels in the semifinals of the conference tournament before they went on to win the title and secure the sole NCAA bid from the Mountain West.
“Obviously we were a little disappointed with the NCAA Tournament and the selection process there,” fifth-year coach Lindy La Rocque said. “But I told the team, every disappointment is a blessing.”
The player who needed that reminder the least ahead of the team’s WBIT matchup is Jackson. She plans to end her time at UNLV doing what she’s come to know best: winning.
“We’re a little bummed we didn’t get to go to the NCAA Tournament. But at this point, we still get to play, which a lot of teams aren’t doing right now,” she said. “My thing is, it’s my last year. Why not go out with a win? Most people don’t get to do that in their college career. We’re playing, so we might as well just win it.”
Bigger than money
A “little bummed” doesn’t quite encapsulate just how emotional Jackson and fellow senior Alyssa Brown became in the immediate aftermath of their loss to San Diego State.
The question that sent them into sobs was about what it meant to spend four years at UNLV, which Jackson had an easier time revisiting after practice a week later.
“My teammates, I truly hope they’re in my life forever,” she said. “I love them so much. And just the relationships I built with the coaches, too. Hopefully I can call them and just always ask for advice.”
For La Rocque, it stands out that Jackson chose four years at UNLV for “a little money” over a potentially bigger name, image and likeness payout elsewhere.
“Since she’s been here, the landscape has changed with NIL and all of these things,” La Rocque said. “She has great friends, and she’s valued that with a price tag that we don’t know, but even more so than what maybe the landscape is telling young people to.”
Jackson never wavered in that choice.
“I’ve definitely been asked, ‘Hey, if a school offered you more money, would you leave?’” she said. “(But) I know what I have going here. … I just think the experience is more important to me than the money.”
‘Come out of her shell’
When Owen, who had initially recruited Jackson as an assistant coach at North Texas, got the job at UNLV, he said he knew she’d be a fit for La Rocque.
“Kiara was the very first person I called, in the U-Haul truck leaving (Texas),” he said. “Her being pretty quiet, she was like, ‘Oh, OK, yeah, that sounds good.’”
The important questions would come in another phone call just five minutes later from her mom, Arisa Greenwood Jackson, who wasn’t comfortable with her “baby going to Las Vegas,” as Owen recalled.
Kiara Jackson said she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the idea, either. But she was a young woman of few words at the time.
Since then, Owen has watched Jackson “come out of her shell” every year.
“She’s given us a lot of leadership and grown,” he said.
Some of her biggest strides have been unconventional. The 5-foot-8-inch guard is somewhat lanky, and was even more so as a freshman.
“As you can tell, she’s not the most muscled kid,” Owen said. “She didn’t eat a lot. She was very picky eater. I was having to go get her pizza on the road her freshman year because she didn’t want to eat whatever we had for dinner.”
‘Quiet toughness’
Now, La Rocque describes Jackson as one of the team’s “most disciplined players in her nutrition and just her habits.”
It’s part of what the coach describes as “quiet toughness,” a trait that’s also on display as Jackson continues to play through a foot issue that began to flare up in January. She wears an air cast whenever she’s not on the court so as to not exacerbate it.
“Sometimes toughness is just like a physicality thing — who’s the biggest, strongest, fastest — and, obviously, Kiara doesn’t always pop off the page as that,” La Rocque said. “Her toughness has been just as much mental — the way she holds herself accountable.”
Jackson, a multidisciplinary studies major with skills in art, graphic design and baking, doesn’t know what she wants to do once UNLV’s season ends, but her coaches know her future is bright.
When asked how he imagines her next steps, Owen was concise.
“Whatever she wants,” he said. “She’s going to have success.”
Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.
Up next
Who: Hawaii at UNLV
What: Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament first-round game
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Cox Pavilion
TV: ESPN+ (streaming)
