Sam Thomas is crossing things off her to-do list.
Wednesday night, Arizona’s senior forward added two more check marks: Beating UCLA at Pauley Pavilion and hitting 3-pointer No. 200, something that only three other Wildcats have done.
More importantly, she’s playing more aggressively on offense.
Over her last three games, all of them wins, Thomas is averaging 17.6 points and has hit 14 of 19 from 3-point range. Over her three previous games, she was just 2 for 8 from 3.
And Thomas isn’t the only one who is lighting it up.
The other two members of No. 8 Arizona’s “big three” — Shaina Pellington and Cate Reese — have stepped up in the last week. Pellington is averaging 19 points over her last three games, while Reese is putting up an average of 16.3 points and eight rebounds per game during that same stretch.
Thomas, Reese and Pellington combined to score 159 of Arizona’s 225 points in wins over Colorado, Utah and UCLA. The rest of their Wildcats teammates combined to score an average of just 22 points per game.
The scoring balance is exactly what Arizona coach Adia Barnes has been looking for with Aari McDonald off to the WNBA.
Arizona forwards Cate Reese, middle, and Sam Thomas chase after Washington State's guard Krystal Leger-Walker in last week's game against the Cougars in McKale Center.
“It’s really important to have Sam in double digits, Shaina in double digits, Cate in double digits. And then I think Lauren (Ware) and Bendu (Yeaney) are capable of doing that,” Barnes said.
“Having more balance is extremely important and different people stepping up at different times. If we’re going to be successful, and we’re going to make a deep run and beat some good teams that it has to happen. … I think you’re seeing a more confident Sam; you’re seeing a more confident Shaina and that’s what it’s all about. And Cate has been very consistent. … I think when you see that as we start to jell more, and put things together, we will be better in a month.”
Barnes wants to see improvement across the board. Reese can be more efficient and Thomas can shoot more; others must chip in, too.
Following Wednesday’s 74-63 win over UCLA, Barnes said the Wildcats will be “on” offensively “when we have five or six people in double digits.”
Slow start, again
The Wildcats had another slow start Wednesday, spotting UCLA a 19-8 lead after the first quarter.
It marked the second consecutive game Arizona has been in a hole early. Against Colorado, the Wildcats trailed by 10 points after the first quarter.
While Arizona was able to reset in both games and bring the intensity on defense, Barnes said she has “no idea” why her team keeps coming out flat.
“I don’t know why it takes me calling a timeout for the second game in a row to be motivated,” Barnes said. “That’s an issue that I have to fix. Just figuring out why we have a slow start or what the issue is. I think that we didn’t do a good job guarding people, even for us. It was hard to play on the road in the Pac-12, but we can’t allow a team to shoot 44%,47%, 46% from the 3. That’s not what we do. That’s not Arizona, but credit to UCLA. They came out and they punched us in the face. They showed a lot of character and they made things difficult for us and they scored on us.”
And now there are 3
The Wildcats now claim three McDonald’s All-Americans, all coming in Barnes’ coaching era. This week, 2022 signees Maya Nanji and Paris Clark joined Reese as the only Wildcats to be selected to play in the game.
The selections further cement Arizona as a power program. Many of the nation’s top teams land multiple McDonald’s players every year.
“It says a lot about the progression of the program and the ability for us to recruit these type of players, but going to championship helps — (it) just brings a level up and I think you’re no longer in the rebuilding phase,” Barnes said. “Now we’re just trying to win the championship and sustain success.”
Barnes said Kailyn Gilbert, another member of the Class of 2022, deserved to be on the list. Barnes said, “she is better than a lot of those guards on the list.” Though the UA coach admitted that “it’s hard; those are small lists for a lot of great players.”
“I think it’s a great accomplishment, great visually for everybody to see. But I think the bottom line is we’re getting players we couldn’t get five years ago,” Barnes added. “To bring your program to the next level, you have to get those good players. You have to get players to take you to be able to win a championship. I believe that with Maya, Kailyn, the other one I can’t mention (Clark hasn’t signed yet), and Lemyah Hylton, I really feel like we can go to the next level. I am just excited we are in the conversation with those kids, years ago we weren’t even in the conversation.”
Rim shots
Wednesday’s win was Arizona’s first in Pauley Pavilion since Feb. 15, 2007, when Joy Hollingsworth and Ashley Whisonant combined to score half of the Wildcats’ total points in a 66-63 victory over the Bruins.
Helena Pueyo, who is seeing a lot of action as backup point guard this season, has 48 assists compared to just 13 turnovers. Her assist-to-turnover ratio of 3.69 would be easily tops in the country if Pueyo qualified. To make the national lists, players must average 3.0 assists or more per game; Pueyo is averaging 2.8. Pueyo has good hands on the defensive end as well, and is averaging 2.24 steals per game — the third-best total in the Pac-12.
Gisela Sanchez saw early action Wednesday, entering with 5:15 left in the first quarter. Twenty seconds later, she scored the Wildcats first points of the game on a layup. The 6-foot-3-inch freshman forward followed it up with a jumper inside the paint. She finished with four points in three minutes.
The Wildcats arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday night in plenty of time to take in the men’s basketball game at Pauley Pavilion, however with the strict COVID-19 rules, they had to watch alone in their hotel rooms.
“We’re not doing a whole lot as a team right now, just because of the bubble and we have a lot of really important games coming up,” Barnes said. “We’ll eat dinner, but we have everybody assigned seating and then we’re not sitting for hours in those enclosed spaces as much as we can help it.”
