After Friday night’s loss to Oregon, University of Arizona women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes said that her team needed to be more aggressive on the 50/50 balls.
Her team took that to heart and turned the intensity up a notch against No. 11 Oregon State on Sunday at McKale Center.
The Wildcats were diving on the floor and tightening up their defense even more, yet it wasn’t quite enough to overcome the No. 11-ranked Beavers, as UA dropped its sixth straight game, 65-57.
First-place Oregon State is now 22-2 overall and 11-1 in the Pac-12, while Arizona is 11-12, 2-10.
“We were so aggressive,” said Barnes. “The posts weren’t afraid of being undersized. Everyone did their job. I’ve never seen Malena (Washington) dive for a 50/50 like that. They were able to translate (from practice) and do it in the game. They are growing and understanding.”
The Wildcats’ defense was so stout they held senior Sydney Wiese to 10 points — two in the first half and only one three-pointer all game.
This from a player who is the all-time Pac-12 three-pointer leader with 339, and had dropped two per game over her last 18 straight games. Her only three came with 5:20 left in the contest.
Last year when these two teams played, Wiese scored 15 points and collected 10 rebounds. It was a much different result for her Sunday afternoon.
“They played tough tonight and worked all 40 minutes,” said Wiese, who dished out four assists. “They took us off our game and didn’t let me get my shots. They made it a fun game.”
The Wildcats started out slow offensively, scoring their first points on a three by LaBrittney Jones with 3:32 left in the first quarter to cut the lead to 8-3.
“All our games are so even, every other quarter (besides the first),” said Breanna Workman, who finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. “We need to find our shots earlier.”
Arizona battled the rest of the way and was down 32-25 at the half. In the second half it was only outscored by one in the third quarter, while in the fourth both teams scored 19 points.
In the third quarter, the Wildcats went on a run and climbed to within three at 39-36, before the Beavers pulled ahead yet again.
“At the half, (coach) said ‘let’s press and keep them off-balance,’ ” said Jones, who finished with 13 points. “We executed that for the most part.”
While the final score shows an eight point deficit, the game always seemed much tighter.
The Wildcats were able to make stops on defense and convert on offense — something else they have been working on.
“When your team plays hard and they do the things you ask, it’s hard to be upset,” said Barnes. “We played a lot smarter today, converted a lot and were taking care of the ball. We had 12 turnovers, six in the first half and two of those were travels.
If we play like this against other teams we would have won more games. I am happy with the team. They fought hard and had that look in their eyes like they wanted it.”
Rim shots
- The Adia Barnes radio show has moved. The new location is The Cellar, lower level of the Student Memorial Union. It will still air at the same time, 6 p.m. Mondays on 1400-AM.
- The Wildcats were wearing their special Nike Kay Yow warmup shirts — white with a pink ribbon on left side — for Pink Day, while the coaching staff was decked out in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness.
Breanna Workman broke out the pink shoes and both teams were wearing the special pink and black socks and sported pink headbands. Pink was spotted throughout the stands, as well.
- Prior to the game, Dr. David Alberts spoke at the Think Pink reception to a crowd of cancer survivors and others.
