In both of its exhibition games, Arizona women’s basketball started hot on offense but took a while to get going defensively. In its regular season opener, it was the other way around. Arizona held the UT Arlington Mavericks to 26.1 percent shooting in the first half on the way to an uneven 73-54 win in McKale Center on Monday afternoon.
“A lot to work on, but great to get a first win and just get the film and kind of see where we need to grow from here,” Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said. “So, a lot of things to work on, but there’s some positives, too.”
It was a good showing for the Arizona defense after allowing both West Texas A&M and Cal State LA to shoot 50 percent or better in the opening halves of its preseason games. The Wildcats couldn’t get anything going offensively on their end for most of the first half, though.
“I think their zone really affected us,” Barnes said. “We probably took six shots in the first half at the end of the shot clock, so not able to kind of go against the 3-2 zone or extended 2-3. That gave us some problems, so definitely need a lot more work on that.”
Arizona’s starting backcourt of Jada Williams and Paulina Paris went 3 for 17 from the field in the first 20 minutes. The pair was 0 for 5 from beyond the arc with several of their shots of the desperation variety. Paris improved her shooting percentage to 33.3 percent, but Williams struggled with percentages all game despite scoring 10 points.
Both teams had difficulty with fouls. Breya Cunningham had two for Arizona with just over six minutes to go in the first quarter and headed to the bench. Skylar Jones soon joined her. Williams also picked up a pair of whistles in the first half, but they did not come as early in the game. On the other end of the court, UTA also had three players with two or more fouls in the first half.
Isis Beh picked up the slack for Arizona on both ends of the floor. The grad student led the team with six points, six rebounds, an assist, and two steals in the opening 20 minutes.
“I just thought I had to be more aggressive because Breya was in foul trouble, and it’s usually throw it in to Breya,” Beh said. “She was on the bench, so I was trying to be more aggressive and get offensive rebounds and score that way.”
Beh ended the evening just shy of a double-double with 10 points and eight rebounds to go with an assist and three steals. She was a very efficient 3-for-4 from the field and 4-for-4 from the free throw line. The rebounds matched her career high set at UNLV as a freshman in 2019.
Cunningham rebounded from the difficult start. She ended her evening with a double-double, scoring 10 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to go with two blocks.
Cunningham did not pick up another foul after getting two in the first four minutes. That was especially important to Barnes, who put her sophomore forward back in the game late in the second quarter despite the foul trouble.
“I have to trust her where she can play with two fouls,” Barnes said. “In the past, if I would put her in with two fouls when she got tired…she would have got her third. So I think she’s doing a better job of understanding, okay, let me pop back and contain. Let me not slap down when a guard drives. And so I have to trust her more because I want to be able to play her with two fouls sometimes.”
Cunningham used self talk and the coaches’ advice to regroup while she was on the bench.
“It was just telling myself…and the coaches reminded to stay disciplined,” Cunningham said. “Keep your hands up. There’s no reason for me to have to jump or do extra to get a block. Just put my hands up and that’ll be enough. So just reminding myself of that and then coming back in and being disciplined.”
Arizona also got double-digit scoring from Sahnya Jah. Jah had 10 points on 4-for-10 shooting to go with three rebounds, two assists, and two steals.
In addition to the four players who got 10 points each, Arizona had two more end with nine points. Freshman guard Mailien Rolf was one of them. Rolf shot 3 for 5 and hit both of her free throws. Her six rebounds were third on the team behind Beh and Cunningham.
In addition to her points, Rolf had two assists, a steal, and a block. Her struggles came with turnovers and fouls, but that was true of several players. Arizona ended with 19 turnovers in the game.
“She’s probably one of our most consistent players,” Beh said. “Like Adia says all the time, you’ll never know if she’s in a bad mood or a good mood. She just comes professional. She does her job, does what she needs to, goes hard every day, and so you always know what you’re going to get from her every day.”
UTA was led by former Wildcat (and Vanderbilt Commodore and USC Trojan) Koi Love. She had 20 points on 7-for-15 shooting, one rebound, two assists, one block, and five steals to go with seven turnovers and three fouls. No one else scored more than nine points for the Mavericks.
Arizona did not announce the attendance, but the crowd looked slightly smaller than usual. Last year, the Wildcats’ home opener against NAU drew 6,909 fans, but this year the game was held at 4 p.m. MST on a Monday due to the men’s game at 8 p.m.
“That’s not the reason…that we played the way we played,” Barnes said. “I prefer it later, just because of our fan base. We want to have a few more thousand fans and people work, so that kind of thing, but I don’t think that’s the reason at all.”
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics