Ultimate team player Lucia Alonso stays calm, even before Arizona's second-round WNIT game

On Sunday, Lucia Alonso will go through her regular game day routine.

She’ll eat chicken, vegetables and pasta. She’ll watch a little TV and listen to music before she gets taped, listens to more music, and takes the court for the Arizona Wildcats’ second-round matchup with Pacific in the WNIT.

Rinse, wash, repeat. It never changes.

Not for an exhibition game, a nonconference game, a Pac-12 game or a World Cup game.

And definitely not for a WNIT game.

Some may say that Arizona’s junior point guard is set in her ways. Others may say she’s disciplined. Whatever it is it seems to be working.

But Arizona coach Adia Barnes thinks there’s more to Alonso’s routine than just being disciplined.

“She is superstitious; I didn’t know how much she was like that,” said Barnes, whose team hosts Pacific at 3 p.m. Sunday. “It’s the superstition and just the comfort. For me, I’m not like that. ... I felt like I had to take a nap before, but it wasn’t like I had to take a certain nap, a certain way, wearing the same thing. Some people have to put the right shoe on first or the left shoe on first, a certain pair of socks. Some people are very superstitious. You see it more in the pros.”

Alonso, formerly a member of Spain’s U16, U18 and U19 teams, is no stranger to big games.

“Her international experience is important. She has a calmness to her, a steadiness,” said Barnes. “She came out and played big (in a first-round WNIT win against Idaho State on Thursday). Her experience overall helps calm us. You know what you are going to get from Lucia every night. Sometimes you may say you want her to shoot more, but she’s never going to take a bad shot. She’s just a team player.

“I love coaching her and I love the way she plays. Now, remember, there is always a special place in my heart for Lucia because she was my first recruit here. So I think that’s just special to me. ... I remember the first year I was patting her on the back and saying, ‘it’s going to get better, don’t worry.’ Everybody was looking at me like, ‘huh, are you serious?’ But she stuck it out. So, we laugh about that — what we’ve both overcome in this program.”

Alonso started as a freshman. That’s not easy, especially while she was perfecting her English those first few months. Alonso said that the game of basketball doesn’t change much from Spain to Tucson. One thing that helps is the European-style that Barnes runs.

“We share the ball, we play together, we run our plays,” said Alonso. “We make reads and our plays depend on the defense.”

So is there a difference between World Cup games and the WNIT?

“When you play in the world championships you play every day and you have to be ready,” said Alonso. “(Otherwise) it’s not much different. Maybe in how we prepare for games. The coaches watch film, but they don’t really have time to do a whole scout. Now, (at UA) we have time to watch film from yesterday and watch film for Sunday.

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“But I feel like how you prepare for a game — I try to do the same thing every day. It doesn’t matter if I am playing in the final or a group game. ... I try not to think about why you are playing the game — not to let the emotions control you. It’s very important in these kind of games.”

Alonso didn’t flinch in her first postseason game at Arizona on Thursday; she did her part to help the freshmen not get awed by the moment.

“We had a very large crowd, which is exciting, but it can be scary sometimes (for freshmen),” she said.

With a short bench last season, Alonso was called on to play nearly 40 minutes every game. The plan this season was to split her time running the offense with Aari McDonald. It was working until the Wildcats went to Oregon and Alonso hurt her left ankle. She missed the better part of two games before returning for the next four, then re-injured her ankle in practice and played limited minutes the last homestand of the season and in the Pac-12 Tournament.

“(This last week off) helped me to get back on track. It was like three weeks off, so I started feeling myself again,” said Alonso. “I was feeling scared on my ankle. It was really sore. But now I’m not thinking about it; I am just playing, which is much easier. ... Now I can play and I don’t feel anything. I wouldn’t say it’s 100 percent, because last night after the game I was like, ‘oh, yeah, I played today.’”

While she was out, McDonald and Tee Tee Starks both stepped up to fill the void. Yet there is so much that Alonso brings on a daily basis to the Wildcats — including what’s not in the box score — that no one person could cover it all.

“For LuLu, the biggest thing is her experience at that position,” said senior Lindsey Malecha. “She handles the ball and she is a shooter and she’s been at that position for three years now, so she knows that position well. She knows how what she needs to do to handle really any type of defense.

“While the other girls can do that, too, it’s like Lu’s type of thing. Lu is so good at not turning the ball over. It really comes down to she is so experienced at it. Everybody remains pretty calm, but the thing I admire the most about Lu is that people will be in her face doubling her, she never lets it get to her. She remains calm. ... She is like no other player.”

And don’t forget her step-back 3.

In Thursday night’s win, Alonso played 25 minutes for the first time in weeks and scored six points — both 3s. If she hits two more Sunday, she’ll move into a tie for ninth place with Monika Crane for made 3s in UA history with 106.

Arizona hasn’t hosted or won more than one postseason game since the 1998 NCAA Tournament. While the Wildcats are locked in and hoping to crack another milestone, Alonso and her teammates are having the most fun since she arrived on campus three years ago.

“I am very happy and it’s really exciting,” said Alonso. “It says a lot about this program and what Coach Adia is doing. I really love playing with the team. We all like each other and have a good chemistry. We just have fun. That’s the most important thing.”

Stoudamire torn between Pacific, UA

Former UA men’s basketball standout Damon Stoudamire is the head coach for Pacific’s men’s team. He’s not quite sure who he’ll be rooting for Sunday.

“I guess it would be a little harder if our men’s team was playing Arizona, but this does seem weird,” said Stoudamire, whose team went 14-18 in his third season at the helm. “Pacific has a good women’s team and I’m proud of them. On the flip side ... I think (Barnes) has done an amazing job in a short time. And she’s one of our own. I wouldn’t have expected anything different from her.