It may sound funny that in Arizona women’s basketball’s crushing of Chicago State 84-48 on Saturday that there were a lot of firsts.
Yet, for the Wildcats, on a day where they out-everythinged their opponent in Chicago, there were many things done for the very first time.
Arizona guard Mailien Rolf (13) knocks away a field goal attempt by UNLV forward Meadow Roland during the second quarter on Nov. 12, 2024. The freshman grabbed 10 rebounds against Chicago State on Saturday, Nov. 16 — the most she’s collected.
Arizona (5-0) took a 26-13 lead after the first quarter, built the lead to 52-22 at the half and despite playing a mixture of rotations starting just four minutes into the game, never let up.
“It was a really good time to play everybody and get everybody in and get some minutes,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said. “That was the intent of the trip to play everybody, work on some things and we definitely have to get better. But it was good to see some people have some really good quality minutes.”
The Wildcats were disruptive on the defensive end, forcing 20 turnovers. In the first half they were even more aggressive on inbounds plays — where the Cougars found most of their miscues. In addition, nine of the Wildcats’ 12 steals came in the first half. As the game progressed, the Wildcats were deflecting balls even more, denying and even forcing travels — one after another.
This extra swarming — especially on the inbounds play — is a new wrinkle in the Arizona defense that hasn’t been shown to this point.
Sophomore Skylar Jones, the Chicago native, picked three of her four steals in the first half. Both of freshman Katarina Knezevic’s steals also came in that first 20 minutes.
It was the first time this season that all 13 active players earned minutes on the court.
There was Montaya Dew scoring seven points on 3 of 6 from the field. She added eight rebounds, three assists, two blocks and one steal. Of those, she posted career highs in points, blocks and rebounds. She played the most minutes of any Wildcat (24).
Freshman Lauryn Swann backed up her breakout game against UNLV Tuesday — scoring 19 points in the last 12 minutes of the game — with 12 points, five rebounds and one assist in 20 minutes. Her firsts came in minutes and rebounds. She left the game in the third quarter and returned at the start of the fourth after banging into a teammate going after a loose ball. It was the same left shoulder that she hurt in San Diego. After the game, Barnes said, “She’ll be OK.”
Freshman Mailien Rolf grabbed 10 rebounds — the most she’s collected.
Junior forward Erin Tack played for 12 minutes, scored 10 points, grabbed one offensive rebound and had one steal — all firsts. She was aggressive driving to the hoop and was all over her defensive assignment.
It was also the first time Brooklyn Rhodes checked into a game this season. Despite missing her two attempted shots, she pulled down two rebounds in three minutes of action.
With all those firsts, there was Breya Cunningham in the midst of it all, being steady and reliable. She led all Wildcats with 14 points (6 of 9 from the field), adding two blocks, two steals and five rebounds in only 15 minutes of action. She has scored in double digits in all five games of the season and is now averaging 13.4 points.
She said it
“Youth, fundamentals, floor spacing — it’s the same stuff we have to work on. You look at (Sahnya) Jah can’t have five (turnovers) as a post player. Players can’t come in off the bench, you can’t be in three, four minutes and have three turnovers. I think a lot of it is fundamentals — jump stopping, not shuffling their feet. Those are fundamentals. That tells me we need to keep on working on getting our players better, keep on working on our skill development, that we work on.” — Barnes on the Wildcats’ high turnovers
Stuffing the stat sheet
Jada Williams: 6 points, 3 assists in 16 minutes
Paulina Paris: 5 points, 5 rebounds in 15 minutes
Knezevic: 6 points, 2 assists, 3 rebounds
Jones: 11 points, 2 assists
By the numbers
42: Half of Arizona’s 84 points were scored in the paint.
20: Both Arizona and Chicago State had 20 turnovers. The Wildcats scored 24 points off the turnovers, while the Cougars scored 13.
20: Arizona had 20 second-chance points.
7: Arizona had seven blocks — Cunningham and Dew had two apiece; Knezevic, Rolf and Isis Beh each had one.
