Before even stepping on the court, you can see a big difference in Breya Cunningham.
The 6-4 sophomore post player looks stronger, more confident and even more at ease.
That’s all part of her growth off the court from freshman to sophomore year.
On the court, you see even more improvements in her shot, her footwork and her defense.
As with every basketball player, it’s still a work in progress. However, you can see little things that get better game by game.
Cunningham can list everything that she’s taken a jump in and those parts of her game she is continuing to work on but said it all comes down to “discipline.”
“Discipline is how I cut down on my fouls,” Cunningham said. “Discipline is how I raised my field goal percentage, just being focused on my finishes and stuff like that. Discipline on defense, being a bigger presence. … just being in the right place at the right time. I would say I was working on my discipline over the summer. It impacted a lot.”
Arizona (9-4) will rely on that discipline and determination when they open the Big 12 slate at BYU (9-2) Saturday at 2 p.m.
Cunningham has always been an impact player. She’ll reel off bucket after bucket on passes from point guard Jada Williams, forwards Isis Beh and Montaya Dew and others. The longer she’s on the court, the more she does to disrupt on both offense and defense. On the defensive side, she’s standing up tall and denying and blocking. She comes out of the paint to help a teammate in a trapping situation and she collects steals.
“She’s come a long way; I think she’s playing at a really high level,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said. “…She’s just gotten better, and she’s a presence inside. I think that she’s making some really tough shots this year. They could be off balance. She’s just going up and she’s confident, so that’s a big thing. And I think defensively, she alters some shots. I think she does a good job with her timing when she doesn’t slap down.
“We need her on the floor, she makes a big difference. Also, she’s an unselfish player. When she gets the ball and she gets doubled or tripled (teamed), she does a great job of passing it out so the guards are going to get shots. And I’m proud of our guards because they’ve done a really good job of feeding the beast, giving her the ball inside and letting her score.”
As Big 12 play is starting, Cunningham sits first in the league and fourth nationally in field goal percentage, hitting at a clip of 67%. Last year she was knocking them down at 52%.
Putting in extra work
Still, after Thanksgiving, Cunningham felt like she was “missing a lot of bunnies,” so she came back to practice and put in extra work shooting her turnarounds near the basket with UA assistant Salvo Coppa.
“I wasn’t as accurate with my shots, so I decided that I just need to get more shots up on the block and get comfortable with that again,” Cunningham said.
Arizona forward Breya Cunningham (25) stuffs Grambling State guard Kahia Warmsley (12) in the third quarter of their game in Tucson, Nov. 23, 2024.
This year it’s been a combination of what she thinks needs some attention and what her coaches are seeing. One of the latter areas is free throw shooting.
Barnes noticed that her shots from the charity stripe weren’t arcing.
“Since I’ve been playing basketball, I’ve never been good at free throws,” Cunningham said. “Then in practice (Barnes) was like, ‘You shoot from your shoulder. You don’t have any arc in it.’ She really helped my form. My form was bad in the beginning.”
Now, Cunningham shoots 100 free throws at every practice. She also got some assistance from Coppa who noticed that the ball was sitting flat in her hands.
“I don’t have any like space between the ball and my fingers and I don’t have the spacing I need to shoot and rotate the ball,” Cunningham said. “That’s one thing that he corrected. It was to get the ball on my fingertips rather than my palm. That way, I’m not pushing it and then I’m shooting it.”
The other piece of her game that has come along is her defense. She started watching more film with assistant coach Anthony Turner. Cunningham thought she wasn’t improving enough on defense and now after watching film, she’s more “intentional and more aware of myself.”
Cunningham has also cut down on her fouls and has only fouled out twice this season – the latest coming against Weber State. She knows how important it is for her to be on the floor helping her teammates.
“She was really disappointed fouling out of the game because she did that so much her freshman year and she hadn’t done that for a while. We had this streak going,” Barnes said. “… I think she’ll be fine. We’ll show some film (Wednesday) and it’s just discipline. …I just think of two games that she wasn’t disciplined, but you’re going to have those games. But we need, we need her on the floor, so we have to figure that out.”
It keeps coming back to that word for Cunningham – discipline. Over the days leading up to the BYU matchup, she has watched more film to understand game situations and “learning when to let people shoot the layups instead of going for the block or knowing when if I’m late for a trap I’m not going forward and getting that foul. It’s just getting a higher IQ on when to make certain plays on defense,” Cunningham said.
Besides the skill development every day from her free throws to her defense and cutting down on those fouls, Cunningham has continued to lean on Barnes to elevate her game.
“(It’s) her telling me to keep shooting, especially after last year when I would always be like 50% on some shots,” Cunningham said. “She always tells me to keep shooting like ‘You’re going to make those shots.’ I would tell her ‘Oh, I can’t shoot that.’ She would tell me to shoot it, things like that. It’s just her trusting me and building up my confidence, I think that has really showed this year.”
