Twin Jordans Better Than One for UNLV : College basketball: Rebels get Pasadena package deal, which has them among the nation’s elite women’s teams.

For many, recruiting Pauline Jordan was simply too much trouble. Geannine, her identical twin sister, was always in the way. The two were inseparable, and to get one you had to take the other.

“I didn’t want to experience playing against Geannine,” Pauline says.

Still, interest in Pauline Jordan, a star at Pasadena Muir High, was intense enough in 1987 that many of the nation’s top women’s basketball programs, according to the twins, were willing to take a package deal.

In a way, that angered Pauline, a 6-foot-3 center.

“Some of the schools cut (Geannine) out without really giving her a chance,” she says.

Geannine adds: “We were just looking for the truth--how we would fit in with the school and if we would graduate.”

So when it came down to choosing between Cal State Long Beach, the power of the Big West Conference, and its toughest rival, Nevada Las Vegas, the choice was relatively easy.

Long Beach was right in the twins’ back yard. And both Pauline and Geannine were recruited by 49er Coach Joan Bonvicini.

But talk spread that Geannine was being offered a scholarship just to assure that Pauline would accept one.

Pauline: “Joan (Bonvicini) stressed her feelings that Geannine might not get much playing time.”

Bonvicini denies that she offered Geannine a scholarship just to get Pauline, but remembers Geannine as being just “pretty good” as a high school player.

Coach Jim Bolla of Nevada Las Vegas saw things differently.

“Some schools recruited Pauline more than Geannine,” he says. “Some just wanted Pauline and not Geannine. We went after both of them equally.

“Everybody knew about Pauline. She was a first-team All-American and very dominant player. Geannine, I think, got overlooked because Pauline was so good. She played in Pauline’s shadow, but we thought Geannine was a good player, also.”

That, and the fact that only one of UNLV’s women’s basketball players in the last 10 years did not graduate, helped sway the twins.

Both are on schedule to graduate in May with degrees in criminal justice.

As for the women’s basketball program . . .

“What they have done is enable us to take that next step,” Bolla says. “We were a top-20 program. They’re one of the reasons why we’re now a top-five program.”

The Jordans, along with such players as guards Vicki Lander and Linda Staley, have transformed the Nevada Las Vegas women’s team into the new power in the Big West and the nation.

The Rebels clinched their first conference championship in five years Feb. 22 with a blowout victory over San Jose State.

Led by the Jordans, they romped over Long Beach twice, winning by 30 points in Las Vegas and by 12 at University Gym on the Long Beach campus, where the 49ers had never lost a conference game.

Pauline Jordan averaged 28 points and 16 rebounds in the two games. Geannine averaged 13 points and nine rebounds.

The Rebels, ranked 10th before the start of the season, climbed to No. 2 before losing their last regular-season game before a full house at Fresno State.

The loss broke a 23-game winning streak and was the first since the Rebels lost by one point to Virginia in the second game of the season.

Bolla takes most of the blame, saying, “I didn’t do a good job of getting the kids ready.”

But he added that the defeat merely serves to relieve pressure the players might have felt with such a streak going as they prepare for this week’s Big West tournament at Long Beach.

It also dropped UNLV back to No. 5, but the Rebels still figure to be the No. 2 seeded team behind Stanford in the NCAA West Regional when the pairings are announced next Sunday.

Pauline has led the Rebels in almost every statistical category two consecutive years. Her 16.6 points, 12.3 rebounds, 99 blocked shots and 61 steals are tops on the squad.

“Now all of the sudden we’re starting to get national recognition,” Bolla says, again attributing that to Pauline Jordan’s play. Aggressive, emotional and demonstrative, she can shoot well in traffic and is considered an excellent passer.

C. Vivian Stringer, coach of the University of Iowa and the women’s national team, of which Pauline is a member, calls her “an excellent rebounder and one of the premier centers in America.”

Virginia Coach Debbie Ryan calls Pauline “a critical person for UNLV in its rise to national prominence. . . . She dominates the boards, and if you dominate the boards you dominate the game.”

Geannine--despite averaging 12.1 points and 7.2 rebounds and making 77.4% of her free throws--and the rest of the squad remain in Pauline’s shadow.

“She is better,” Geannine admits. “But then it’s more her style that gets her all that recognition. She does all the spins and I don’t. I just put the ball in. I take the easier route. Pauline takes the more noticeable route.”

Bolla agrees, calling the 6-foot-2 Geannine a quiet, but very effective forward-center. “At the end of the game you’ll look at the box score and Geannine will have 18 points, nine boards, two blocks and three steals--and you won’t even know it.”

What Bolla is well aware of, however, is that both the Jordans and Staley, who leads the team in assists with 4.3 a game, will graduate this spring.

He says he will rely on depth that helped the Rebels through this season--both Jordans averaged slightly more than 27 minutes a game, and many of the games were blowouts; on Lander, who was second to Pauline in scoring with a 12.2 point average, and on 6-6 Merlelynn Lange and Janice Holliday.

Bolla, however, acknowledges that things won’t be the same next season. “We have to understand we’re not going to replace Pauline and Geannine,” he says of the Jordans, who intend to play professionally in Europe. “We need to get someone to come in and need to get the returning kids to come in and pick up some of the slack. And then we’ll be OK.”