The University of Arizona women’s basketball team routed the University of Texas at Arlington 73-54 on Monday, Nov. 4 at 4 p.m. in the McKale Center. The Wildcats kick off the regular season 1-0, coming off of both their previous exhibition victories.
Recap
The Wildcats jumped out to a 6-point run right from the get-go. However, UT Arlington responded back with a 7-2 run of its own.
Out of a timeout, the Mavericks went into a zone defense, giving Arizona issues offensively. After forcing a 3-minute scoring drought, University of North Carolina transfer Paulina Paris, converted a layup and drew the foul to cap off another 6-point run. This allowed Arizona to lead 21-14 at the end of the opening period.
At the start of the second quarter, the Wildcats’ offensive woes continued as the Mavericks defense forced a shot clock violation.
Later in the period, redshirt sophomore Montaya Dew checked into the game. This was Dew’s first time on the court as a Wildcat and playing basketball in nearly two and a half years after recovering from a torn ACL.
“Stuff that she [Dew] does, doesn’t always show up on the stat sheet […]. She does a great job at stunting and preventing drives, she had really good post defense, she was really solid on the ball in pick and roll situations,” said head coach Adia Barnes.
The Wildcats’ defense forced UT Arlington to turn the ball over five times, only allowing 7 points in the second quarter. Right before halftime, freshman guard Lauryn Swann drained a 3-pointer to give the team a 34-21 lead into the break.
Redshirt senior Isis Beh led the team in scoring with 6 points to go along with six rebounds. Four other Wildcats went into the half putting up 5 points each; Swann, Sahnya Jah, Paris and freshman Mailien Rolf, the transfer guard from Germany.
Entering the third period, Arizona came out strong, going on a 4-point scoring run and a block by Breya Cunningham to force the Mavericks to call timeout.
UT Arlington came out of the timeout on a 6-0 scoring run to cut the deficit to 40-29. From then on, the Arizona defense did not allow a field goal for the next three minutes. The Wildcats capitalized on the opportunity, going on a 10-point scoring run that included a buzzer-beater layup from Jah to close the third quarter 55-36.
In the final period Arizona struggled, committing seven turnovers and 10 team fouls while allowing UT Arlington to go on a 6-0 run. Soon after, Barnes subbed back in her starters to stop the bleeding and prevent the Mavericks from making a comeback.
Although the Wildcats held on to the win, Barnes noted the team has many things to improve on with some positives to take away.
“We can’t have so many fouls […]. Their [UT Arlington] zone really affected us, we probably took six shots in the first half at the end of the shot clock, so not able to kind of go against a 3-2 zone or extended 2-3 that gave us some problems so definitely need a lot more work on that,” said Barnes.
Arizona had four players who scored in double figures, including Cunningham who achieved a double-double, putting up 10 points and 10 rebounds. Jah, Jada Williams and Beh each finished with 10 points.
The team shot nearly 40 percent from the field, going 25-63 on scoring and 22% from beyond the arc. The Wildcats had help from their bench which delivered 30 much-needed points. However, the team accumulated 19 turnovers with eight of them being steals and five of them going to former Wildcat Koi Love who played for Barnes from 2021-22.
“We obviously want 20 assists, 10 turnovers and I think we had seven or eight where we threw right to Koi [Love] and Koi knows what we try to do so Koi was ready for it […]. But Koi played really well,” said Barnes.
“We trust each other a lot, we share the ball a lot […]. Doesn’t matter how we get the win. I think that’s really good for us this year,” said Cunningham.
Looking Ahead
Arizona will host Tarleton State University on Thursday, Nov. 7 at 6 p.m. in McKale Center.
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