NCAA Tournament scouting report: No. 7 Arizona Wildcats vs. No. 10 West Virginia Mountaineers

Probable starters

ARIZONA

1 G Shaina Pellington (5-8 sr.)

30 G/F Jade Loville (5-11 sr.)

12 F Esmery Martinez (6-2 sr.)

23 F Lauren Fields (5-9 sr.)

25 F Cate Reese (6-2 sr.)

WEST VIRGINIA

11 G JJ Quinerly (5-8 so.)

30 G Madisen Smith (5-5 sr.)

00 G Jayla Hemingway (5-11 sr.)

14 F Kylee Blacksten (6-3 jr.)

32 G Kyah Watson (5-10 so.)

How they match up

History: Arizona and West Virginia have met only one other time on Nov. 27, 1982, in a Thanksgiving Tournament at Youngstown State in Kent, Ohio. On that neutral court, UA won 65-61. Adia Barnes was 5 years old when that game was played.

When West Virginia is at its best: It’s all about guard play for this Mountaineers squad. The trio who lead the way are Jayla Hemingway, Madisen Smith and JJ Quinerly in scoring, assists and rebounds. Smith finished the season on a tear, scoring 30 points against Baylor and dishing seven assists. She has averaged 24 points over the last four games. Both Smith and Quinerly average 14.3 points per game, followed by Hemingway with 9.3 points per game.

When Arizona is at its best: The Wildcats’ point guard, Shaina Pellington, also plays an important role in getting everything going on offense and defense. The other key to UA’s success is post play. When both experienced posts, Esmery Martinez and Cate Reese, are on the floor together and looking for each other, anything is possible. Offensively, when the Wildcats shoot 40% or more, they usually win (21-3).

She said it

“Arizona is a team that is good on both ends of the court, and that makes them a really big challenge. A team that scores 74 points. Again, they score efficiently at a 44% clip this year. From the arc they don’t shoot as many as some teams we see in the Big 12, but they shoot it at a 34% clip. They offensive-rebound incredibly well. They turn their opponents over and hold them down. They’re just really, really solid all the way around.

“They put you in pressure situations. A lot of times when you think of that you think how teams do that on the defensive end, (but) Arizona puts you in those pressure situations on offense, because they can attack the rim really fast, they can attack the rim by screening to get inside or just posting to get inside or driving to get in there. They are really good in those traffic scenarios. When teams that we’ve seen tried to do everything (to) take that away, well, then they just kick out shooting. The pressure they put on you isn’t just on one end of the court, and they’re really good on the defensive end and turn teams over as well.”

— West Virginia coach Dawn Plitzuweit

Sidelines

A sprint:Teams find out when and where they are playing in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday evening. Over the next 48 hours, they need to figure out the logistics of how to get their teams to wherever they are playing. For the Wildcats, this task falls on UA’s director of operations, Kayla Scott.

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Scott said she didn’t lock down the charter flight until Tuesday at 3 p.m. UA left Tucson the following morning at 9 a.m. Scott planned the itinerary, which includes food, for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Much of Scott’s planning is set at the NCAA Tournament — practice times and reserved hotel rooms — which makes everything easier.

Scott also likes being in a bigger city as she hasn’t had any “issues with restaurant saying, ‘No, we can’t take you,’ “ she said. “Now, if we want to go do anything special, then it’s a little bit harder to do it last minute because you need contracts and reservations. But this trip, we’re trying to stay at the hotel as much as possible. It makes it a lot easier on me. Because the hotel can handle everything.”

Some schools aren’t as fortunate. The NCAA has a rule enabling it to pay to charter teams that are 400 or more miles from the site where they are playing. Holy Cross is 393 miles away from State College, Maryland. No NCAA charter. And with a snowstorm headed to Boston, no commercial flights were available. The Crusaders ended up traveling by bus. Road trip!

Turns out it was even more fun. They played “Catch Phrase” and a mini, travel-size version of “Bop It!” They also watched “Hunger Games” and crime documentaries on Netflix.

“We were able to bond even longer on the bus,” Holy Cross coach Maureen Magarity said. “This team is a really, really special team. We’re still running on adrenaline, but we got in. We left at 3 o’clock from Worcester, got here a little after 11 last night.”

Hosting or not: It seems like the NCAA might have thought Arizona was a lot closer to hosting than everyone else. In the media packet that was handed out Sunday night, Tucson was listed as a host site along with the hotel where the media would be staying. Los Angeles (UCLA) wasn’t on the list but ended up as a host.

Another mix-up came with the information given on whom to contact for any media-related questions. Arizona’s assistant athletic director for communications, Matt Ensor, was listed as the host coordinator for a site that didn’t end up as a host.

Order up: Potomac Pizza is the go-to for Maryland’s athletic teams. For the last five years, the outlet across from campus in College Park has catered all sports, plus many visiting teams.

Favorite orders for the women’s basketball team includes the chicken Caesar wrap and pasta — chicken parmesan, linguini with meatballs and lasagna. Jim Harding, the general manager, said it’s mainly “heavy foods, because they usually use me for postgame (meals).”

Harding said that the repeat business comes from being reliable and good. He’s heard horror stories of other places not delivering on time or at all.

Most of the orders are completed in half an hour. Except for the large orders for football teams.

There are no strangest-order stories, but sometimes there are crazy requests like when and where the 150 medium pizzas for Michigan State were delivered.

“They were like, ‘Deliver it a little bit after halftime or the third quarter,’ “ Harding said. “It was outside, it was in October and I’m putting the pizzas on a table outside. They’re not going to touch it for at least another 45 minutes. So all pizzas are cold, and that bothers me just because you know cold pizza, like, come on.”

Facts and observations

Arizona: During UA’s open practice, Pellington stepped on her ankle awkwardly. It didn’t take her long to get back into the action playing tight defense on an inbounds pass and making an off-balance, contested shot. ... Jade Loville went all out on every drill and every scout-specific scenario. Her defense has taken a jump over the last week. ... Freshman Paris Clark jumped up and swatted down an inbounds pass and made it look easy. ... Former UA standout Trinity Baptiste, who is playing in Romania, has signed a contract to play for in Mexico this summer from May to August.

West Virginia: First-year coach Plitzuweit led the Mountaineers to a share of fourth place in the Big 12. She is the only UWV first-year coach to lead her squad to the NCAA Tournament.

Numbers game

1 — Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden have Arizona beating West Virginia in the first round of the women’s bracket. Obama went chalk with No. 1 South Carolina winning it all, while Biden has Villanova with the title. His wife, Jill, has a master’s from Villanova.

7 — Former UA standout Dominique McBryde is playing in Hungary. Two of her teammates have their college teams playing in the NCAA Tournament and, like the Wildcats, they are No. 7 seeds. Raina Perez played at North Carolina State, and Ama Degbeon played at Florida State.

1 — The Pac-12 is first in the nation in winning percentage (69%) in the NCAA Tournament since the 2016. The league has gone 76-35.