Arizona women’s basketball has lost five games in a row and faces a daunting trip to No. 4 Stanford and No. 6 California this weekend, but there will likely be a silver lining for the UA.
Senior guard Davellyn Whyte is poised to become the Wildcats’ No. 2 all-time scorer.
Whyte, who has scored 1,926 points, moved into third on Arizona’s all-time charts on Friday against Washington. No. 2 Dee-Dee Wheeler had 1,966 points.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” Whyte said. “I honestly don’t know anything about it until someone tells me about it. We just need to get a couple more wins and then we’ll feel better.”
Whyte was averaging 16.2 points per game heading into last weekend’s games, where she scored 20 against Washington and 17 against Washington State.
“She’s been huge,” head coach Niya Butts said. “Obviously in order to score that number of points you have to be able to do some things on the basketball court.”
Adia Barnes, the all-time leading scorer in Arizona history with 2,237 points, was at Friday’s game as an assistant coach for the Huskies.
Right now, Barnes is the only member of UA’s 2,000-point club.
“I think it’s great, you know as a player you don’t think about those things, so I’m just shocked that it lasted that long,” Barnes said. “I think that she’s a great player, so to even think that I have 2,000 points … is just an honor.”
Barnes is the color commentator for the Seattle Storm and also was an announcer for college basketball on Fox Sports Northwest and ROOT Sports.
Barnes played in Sacramento, Cleveland, Minnesota and Seattle in the WNBA. She won the 2004 championship with the Seattle Storm and was the first women’s basketball player inducted into the UA’s sports Hall of Fame.
Barnes, who played 12 seasons in the pros, also in Ukraine, Portugal, Israel, Russia, Turkey and Italy, said Whyte can play the one, two or three at the next level and that she will probably be a wing player.
“I think that she’ll probably break a ton of my records,” Barnes said. “Just to have records that are comparable to a player of her caliber, I think that I’m honored to be in the [same] level as her.”
Last season, Whyte was an Associated Press All-America honorable mention and is a three-time all-conference selection. She ended the year No. 2 in the Pac-12 in scoring, No. 13 in rebounding, No. 11 in assists, No. 7 in free-throw percentage, No. 2 in steals and No. 3 in 3-point field goal percentage.
“It’s been a good deal for us, we’ve been blessed. It’s been an honor to have her as a part of our program,” Butts said. “I have no doubt that she’s going to continue to do great things.”
Whyte is the daughter of former Major League Baseball player Devon Whyte, who was a three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner over a 16-year career.
The Phoenix native was a second-team freshman All-America and the 2010 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year.
“I think that she’s explosive. I think that she’s one of the most prolific scorers in this league,” Barnes said. “I think that she’ll be a great pro player. She’s really tough to guard, one on one. I think that she has a bright future.”
Even though she was hurting Friday, Whyte still scored 20 points, her fourth-best output of the season. Whyte left the game with an ankle injury but two days later she said she was fine.
“I think that she’ll be a good pro because she’s strong in her body,” Barnes said. “I just hope that she’s healthy; that’s unfortunate for her senior year. The whole game it didn’t look like she’s 100 percent, you could see with her gait and her turnovers and I was hurt a lot so I know, I can see.”
Arizona’s 2,000-point club is small, but Barnes said she would like to help Whyte in any way possible after the season.
“You just want to see a player like her play to her full potential and I think that if she plays healthy, she’ll break a ton of records,” Barnes said.
“But she’ll have a chance to play long beyond, for many years and I hope she does. And if I can ever help her or be a resource for her later, I definitely will be … I would love to because I wish I would have had that coming out of school here.”
