Isis Beh scored 18 points in a furious comeback attempt against the Baylor Bears. It may have ended in an overtime loss, but Beh’s ability to put points on the board when the Arizona Wildcats were struggling to get the ball to Breya Cunningham turned a blowout into a nail-biter. She will be just as important in the next outing.
Next up is Iowa State, which snuck out a seven-point win at Arizona State on Wednesday. The Cyclones and the Wildcats have a few things in common including identical 11-6 overall records and 2-2 records in Big 12 play.
The Cyclones are not having the kind of year they expected. They were ranked No. 8 in the Associated Press Top 25 after the first week of the season. That was the highest ranking for any Big 12 team that week. In week 10, they are not even receiving votes.
It started with a trip to Cedar Falls where Northern Iowa took ISU down 87-75. That happened on the same night Arizona went to Flagstaff and lost to Northern Arizona. It wasn’t the last sign of trouble for either team.
Four days after losing to the Panthers, Iowa State narrowly defeated Drake 80-78 at home.
Through the rest of the nonconference season, their losses were explainable. The Cyclones dropped games to then-No. 4 South Carolina, No. 21 Iowa, and then-No. 4 UConn. All came either on the road or at neutral sites.
Things have continued on the up-and-down trajectory in conference play. ISU opened with a loss at Oklahoma State (13-2, 3-1), then got a home win over Kansas (11-4, 1-3). A loss to Utah (12-3, 3-1) in Ames was followed by the seven-point win at ASU (8-8, 2-2).
Like Arizona, ISU relies on a dominant post player to be successful. In the Cyclones’ case, it’s even more extreme.
Sophomore post player Audi Crooks is good for 23.6 points per game. The only other Cyclone to average double-digit scoring is fellow sophomore forward Addy Brown at 13.6 ppg. The pair is good for about 15 rebounds per game with Crooks grabbing 7.8 and Brown getting 7.5. Both players log over 28 minutes per game.
ISU has a few players who can hit the outside shot, although most don’t score as much as Arizona’s support players. They can keep the defense from collapsing on Crooks in the paint, though.
Brown is good for 37.5 percent of her outside shots. Point guard Emily Ryan hits the same percentage, going 15 for 40 this year. Sydney Harris (31 of 62), Arianna Jackson (21 of 59), and Kelsey Joens (13 of 33) have all been relatively efficient from beyond the arc this season while appearing in every game ISU has played.
Brown may pose even more problems for Arizona than Crooks precisely because her offensive game is strong inside and outside. While listed as a forward, she plays more like a guard.
Brown attempts just under seven 2-point field goals per game, hitting 54.2 percent. She goes outside to attempt 3.3 shots from beyond the arc every game, connecting on 37.5 percent of those. She also goes to the line to connect on 73.2 percent of her 3.3 free throw attempts per game. She can dish to the tune of 3.8 assists per game. The Wildcats must find someone who can defend her all over the court.
Barnes feels that defensive matchups have been more challenging this season than in years past. The coaches are spending more time than in recent years trying to decide which of their players can match up with their opponents’ offensive threats. She thinks it will be a mixed bag against Iowa State, but she also thinks the similarities between the Cyclones and Baylor will be helpful.
“(ISU is) gonna play four guards,” Barnes said. “So that’s hard. Those are match-up problems for us…The good thing for us for preparation for this week is we’re gonna guard a lot of certain similar screens, screening action that we can work on all week, which is good. It’s a lot harder when you’re preparing for the weekend where one team is super aggressive, one team is all zone because then you’re trying to combine all those things…but they’re doing a lot of similar things, even though they’re different personnel. So that helps us. I think for Breya, our post preparation for the Big 12 is a little bit easier because in the Pac-12, she’s pulled away from the basket a lot. In the Big 12, she’s not pulled away as much because there’s going to be pretty much bigs on all the top teams. There’s good bigs that stay inside. They’re not shooting 3s, picking and popping. That was harder for her. Now with the four guards against Iowa State, that’s hard because our four is going to have to guard, but they have to guard us, too. But I think from the five position…it’s going to be a lot easier.”
The challenge at the four will primarily fall on Beh, but she should have more help against ISU than they did against Baylor. Both Montaya Dew and Katarina Knežević missed Wednesday’s game with the flu. Dew was back in practice on her birthday, although she was wearing a mask.
The other player the Wildcats would like to get help from is Sahnya Jah. She was brought to Arizona to play the four, but her difficulties with turnovers and shot selection have limited her time in most games. She leads the Wildcats with 48 turnovers while playing a ninth-most 16.3 minutes per game.
Beh is not as athletic as Jah or Dew, making it more difficult for her to guard players on the perimeter. There are things Beh can do to be more effective out there.
“She’s got to not be so low off the ball when they’re a shooter,” Barnes said. “Because sometimes as a post player your tendency is to go inside. You’re not on the line of the ball, and then on a skip, you’re late to get out there. So moving with your player on the line of the ball, closing out in the right way, whether they’re full closeout or not.”
It’s not just about the defense, either. Beh showed some offensive aggressiveness against Baylor that helped the Wildcats push a much more experienced team to overtime. She hasn’t always shown that kind of aggressiveness in college, but it’s especially important against a team with an offensive mismatch.
“I think that offensively, being aggressive because where you have the shortfall on defense, you have an advantage on offense,” Barnes said. “So then she has to take advantage of that advantage, and she’s got to shoot the ball, and post them up, and do different things like that, and make a guard guard her in the post…She’s capable. She did that all nonconference, which is good…I think Isis is the one that can do it. And then Montaya can do it, and we can even play small a little bit. So the main thing is the fives being able to take care of inside because our guards can’t guard big posts.”
Beh may not have 18 points every game like she did against Baylor, but she has shown she can be an offensive threat. Continuing that will be key against Iowa State and beyond.
Rankings and ratings
NET: Iowa State No. 47, Arizona No. 72
Her Hoop Stats: Overall—Iowa State No. 45, Arizona No. 58; Offensive—Iowa State No. 37, Arizona No. 75; Defensive—Iowa State No. 67m, Arizona No. 46
Massey: Iowa State No. 37, Arizona No. 49
Projections and probabilities
Her Hoop Stats: HHS projects that the Cyclones will win in McKale Center, but neither the point differential nor the probability is strong. ISU has a 53.3 percent win probability in Tucson. The projected score is 68.5 to 67.5. The overall point total is 136.1.
Massey: Massey also gives ISU the slight edge with a 54 percent win probability. The most likely score is 70-68. The median is 70-69 and the mean is 70.59 to 69.18.