Jada Williams left everything out there. The Arizona guard fought for rebounds, dove for loose balls, and made clutch shots to help the Wildcats mount a comeback from 20 points down. It just wasn’t enough against Vanderbilt, which defeated UA 71-60 at the Acrisure Holiday Invitational in Palm Springs, Calif. on Tuesday afternoon.
“Nothing surprised me at all,” said Arizona head coach Adia Barnes. It’s exactly what I thought, but it concerned me. I knew they were going to go to just certain sets…So nothing surprised me. Everything was what we thought, but it really affected us more than I would have thought, because of my expectations of we can break it like we did in the second half and got layups, but we weren’t able to do that first half.”
The Wildcats trailed by as many as 20 points early in the second half. They trimmed seven points off that lead to head into the final 10 minutes trailing by 13. Halfway through the final quarter, the lead was down to one point. The turnovers and fouls that had hampered them early finally returned, allowing the Commodores to pull away again and make the final margin double digits.
Isis Beh had two straight turnovers during the comeback with Arizona trailing by two points each time. Williams had one after an Arizona timeout with just under a minute to go and the Wildcats behind by five.
Vanderbilt only had three fewer turnovers than Arizona, but the Commodores converted those into 29 points compared to 19 for the Wildcats. They outshot UA 23-31 to 6-11 from the free throw line. They also hit two more 3-point shots than the Wildcats and had four more second-chance points.
Williams had seven of Arizona’s 26 turnovers, but she was a force in other areas. She led the Wildcats with 20 points on 6-for-13 shooting. She had four rebounds, fighting for several during the comeback run. She added an assist and six steals.
“She played like 39 minutes,” Barnes said. “Super tough. She fights, she dives for balls, she attacks. And credit to her, because she had the ball a lot, and she was handling the pressure a lot, and the ball was in her hands, and I felt bad, and we couldn’t really help her out, and she just was dying. But she’s just mentally tough. She’s the toughest kid we have, and she has a big heart, and she just fought, and so I’m proud of her. We just needed a little bit more, a little bit earlier, but we have to learn from that.”
Nine of Williams’ 20 points came over two minutes and 44 seconds in the fourth quarter. She was joined by Breya Cunningham, Paulina Paris, and Sahnya Jah in the scoring burst. Cunningham and Paris each scored four points while Jah scored six.
“I think a learning lesson for us as a young team is you gotta attack things and attack smart,” Barnes said. “We got layups (in the second half)…When we’re tired, we should not attack better and play harder and get more 50-50 balls. That’s how we have to start the game.”
Barnes was pleased with the play of Jah, who she felt played hard during her entire time on the floor.
“I thought Jah played harder in these three quarters than I’ve seen in a long time,” Barnes said. “So you can live with mistakes as a coach when you’re playing hard. So I point that out…but I want that from Jah all the time. I want that practice. I want that all the time, and that’s what the level of expectation is.”
Cunningham ended just short of a double-double with 17 points and 9 rebounds. She added an assist and three steals.
Paris led the team in assists with three. She added nine points, five rebounds, and one steal.
It took Arizona a long time to figure out Vanderbilt. The Commodores controlled things from the get-go, holding the Wildcats to seven points while forcing four turnovers in the first quarter.
The Wildcats also turned VU over four times in the first, but hitting just 20 percent of their shots held them back. Williams, Beh, and Skylar Jones hit one bucket each in the quarter.
Arizona’s shooting got better in the second quarter, jumping to 45.5 percent. Vanderbilt shot slightly better from the field but also went to the line eight times in the first half. The Wildcats didn’t shoot any free throws in the first 20 minutes. They often couldn’t hold onto the ball long enough to get fouled with 14 of their 26 turnovers coming in the opening half.
Arizona will face former Pac-12 foe California in the 3rd-place game at 12 p.m. MST on Wednesday. The game will air on TruTV and be streamed on Max.