After last season, the Arizona Wildcats said goodbye to one of the most unselfish players in program history. Helena Pueyo not only preferred to pass rather than score, but she spent four of her five years as a reserve, always saying that she didn’t care whether she started.
“I think starting does not matter,” said Arizona head coach Adia Barnes. “And if you look at Helena Pueyo, she was much better off the bench…And you need scoring off the bench, and you need some leadership, because it goes against a different group. And, unfortunately, (Skylar Jones) has been better off the bench. If you think of the last time she didn’t start, she came in and played phenomenal. I don’t like to think she likes that, but she was perfect from the field. Played awesome coming off the bench, but as you’re teaching the players, that should not be the motivation. As a coach, you don’t want to threaten things, you don’t want to use that as motivation, but you have to.”
Barnes knows that Pueyo’s indifference to starting or coming off the bench isn’t the typical attitude for younger college players.
“When you don’t start, to players, it’s so important,” Barnes said. “I think to veterans and older, and in the pros, it doesn’t matter. But as players at their age, it’s very important.”
That leaves Barnes with a conundrum heading into a tough week with games against Baylor and Iowa State, both of which have been ranked this season. When her typical starting five have been healthy, she has gone with a lineup of Breya Cunningham, Isis Beh, Jada Williams, Skylar Jones, and Paulina Paris. All except Paris have missed at least one game due to injury, and Paris played just three minutes in the win at UCF because she “wasn’t 100 percent,” according to Barnes.
The injuries have required Barnes to alter her starting lineup at times, giving spot starts to Montaya Dew, Sahnya Jah, and Mailien Rolf when starters were out. The understanding was always that it would revert to the typical lineup when the starters returned, though. Against UCF, she made changes unrelated to injury for the first time in the regular season.
Rolf and fellow freshman guard Lauryn Swann got starts in place of Jones and Paris. Arizona looked like a much more cohesive team with the new starting lineup. The ball moved. Williams was able to move off the ball, making her a more efficient shooter. Swann’s outside shooting prowess pulled defenders out of the paint, giving Cunningham more room to operate. And bringing Jones off the bench both motivated her and gave the Wildcats someone who could score when Cunningham had to sit with fouls.
While fans notice the scoring more than anything else and Swann’s 22 points against Utah were undoubtedly the biggest reason she got her second Big 12 Freshman of the Week award, scoring wasn’t the main reason Rolf and Swann were so important in the win at UCF.
Rolf led the team with seven rebounds and had three assists. She was also a huge reason Williams was able to operate more effectively.
Swann had a much more well-rounded game against UCF, impacting the game in multiple areas. Her scoring may have dropped to six points, but her contribution to the team’s success was much bigger. While her only other positive stat against Utah was a single assist, against the Knights, she had three rebounds, two assists, and three steals to go with her points.
It’s something the coaches try to impress on all the players. Barnes stresses the importance of things other than scoring all the time. Swann is learning how to step up in other parts of the game, especially defense. In addition to constant reminders from Barnes, assistant coach Kamiko Williams is having a big impact on her development in other areas of the game.
“Coach Miko back there, even if I make a shot in practice, ‘Are you getting back? Are you talking? I haven’t heard you. Are you sliding your feet on defense?’” Swann said. “So I feel like that contributes a lot to the shift in me.”
Whether that leads to a second start this week is up in the air, though.
“I think that it’s all it’s up in the air right now, and it’s going to go on performance of the week and the preparation and health. Who’s healthy, who’s not,” Barnes said. “I think that after that Utah loss, we had to make a change, because that was not the way we want to start games, and that’s not the kind of values, the way we want to play. So I thought that shake up was good, and I thought some people really responded to it in a positive way. So that was a good thing, but I don’t know. And that’s a good thing about having these couple of days in between because you can prep and look at stuff.”
Rankings and ratings
NET: Baylor No. 26, Arizona No. 74
Her Hoop Stats: Overall—Baylor No. 22, Arizona No. 61; Offensive—Baylor No. 25, Arizona No. 77; Defensive—Baylor No. 17, Arizona No. 48
Massey: Baylor No. 21, Arizona No. 51
Projections and probabilities
Her Hoop Stats: HHS projects the Bears to be victorious in McKale Center with a 77.3 percent win probability. BU is favored by 8.8 points and the point total is predicted to be 134.3.
Massey: Massey gives Baylor the edge with a 69 percent win probability. The most likely score is 70-63. The mean is 70.69 to 63.96.
Odds
Fan Duel favors Baylor by 8.5 points. The O/U is set at 133.5 points. The money line is -430/+320.