Sunday’s Arizona-Oregon State women’s basketball matchup capped off a historic weekend at McKale Center with a combined attendance of 47,206 over a four-day span.
Thursday and Saturday games for the Arizona men’s team both sold out (14,644) in wins over No. 3 UCLA and No. 19 USC, while the UA women’s team beat No. 19 Oregon on Friday night in front of the largest regular-season crowd in school history (10,413).
The Wildcats women’s team ended the weekend with 7,505 fans on hand to watch its 73-61 win over Oregon State, marking a home sweep of the Oregon schools in back-to-back seasons.
Three of the four wins by the two UA hoops programs came over ranked opponents.
Movin’ on up
Arizona’s Sam Thomas joined the program’s top-10 all-time scoring list, passing Timi Brown (1987-91) to move into 10th with 1,316 career points. Thomas had 10 points against the Beavers, her seventh double-digit scoring game of the season.
Cate Reese’s 19-point performance helped her go from ninth to eighth place on the scoring list, passing Ashley Whisonant (2005-08) with 1,455 points. She needs 13 points to pass Shawntinice Polk for seventh.
Love has best UA performance
Ariyah Copeland missed Sunday’s game with a migraine, allowing forward Koi Love to have her highest-scoring day as a Wildcat. Love came in off the bench, finishing the game with a season-high 16 points, 12 of which came in the first half. She converted on 7 of 10 field goals and tied for a team-high in assists (3).
Wildcats forward Cate Reese goes in for a layup during a fast break in the first half Sunday.
Relive the 2021 Final Four run
The Pac-12 Network aired an hour-long behind-the-scenes episode of “Our Stories” Friday night, featuring an inside look at the 2021 Final Four run by the Wildcats. According to the show’s description, the episode takes a look back at the rise of Arizona women’s basketball under Adia Barnes and chronicles the team’s first-ever trip to the NCAA Final Four.
The show is available only to Pac-12 subscribers for the first 30 days, then will be made available on Pac-12.com to stream without a subscription starting March 6.
Bracket watch
Arizona’s weekend sweep of the Oregon schools was important for not only the Pac-12 standings, but in giving the Wildcats a résumé boost for the NCAA Tournament. Both Oregon and Oregon State are projected to be tournament teams, though the Ducks are more of a lock to get in than the Beavers.
As of Feb. 4, ESPN had the Wildcats listed as a No. 2 seed in the Bridgeport Region and hosting the first two rounds in Tucson. Oregon is projected as a 3-seed in the Wichita Region and Oregon State among the “Last Four in” as an 11-seed.
The Wildcats have now beaten six NCAA-projected programs this year.
The big number
15 — Both the Arizona men’s and women’s basketball teams have matching 15-game home winning streaks at McKale. The men’s last loss at home came on Feb. 13, 2021, against Oregon while the UA women’s team has been unbeaten in Tucson since their Jan. 1, 2021 loss to top-ranked Stanford.
She said it
“She came out of her shell a little bit, she really brought on great energy.” — Barnes on Love, who has scored 24 points over her last two games.
