Scouting report: No. 18 Arizona Wildcats vs. Loyola Marymount Lions

Who: Loyola Marymount (1-2) at No. 18 Arizona (2-0)

Where: McKale Center

When: 6:30 p.m.

Radio: 1400-AM

Probable Starters

ARIZONA

G Shaina Pellington (5-8 senior)

G/F Jade Loville (5-11 senior)

F Esmery Martinez (6-2 senior)

F Lauren Fields (5-9 senior)

F Cate Reese (6-2 senior)

LMU

F/C Khari Clark (6-2 senior)

G Ariel Johnson (5-9 senior)

G Nicole Rodriguez (5-9 junior)

F Alexis Mark (6-0 junior)

G Se’Quoia Allmond (5-5 sophomore)

Key players

Loyola Marymount — Ariel Johnson

Johnson did it all for the Lions last season, averaging 13 points, 1.9 steals, 2.7 assists and 5.3 rebounds per game. She has picked right up where she left off, averaging 13 points, two steals, two assists and three rebounds in the first three games of the season.

Arizona — Kailyn Gilbert

Just two games into the season, Gilbert — who won gold playing for USA Basketball at the FIBA U18 World Championships last summer — is averaging 13 points per game while shooting 56% from the field. She had three steals and hit all four of her free throw attempts in Sunday's win over Cal State Northridge.

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Matchup history

Arizona lost its last two games to LMU, falling 84-70 in 2017 and 66-64 in 2018. The series is split 2-2.

Sidelines

Early success

The last time these two teams met was 2018, Aari McDonald's second game as a Wildcat. Her performance provided a glimpse into what McDonald would show during her UA career. She scored 39 points, hitting 20 of 23 free throws, while pulling down eight rebounds and snatching three steals in 39 minutes.

McDonald would go on to score 30 or more points seven more times that season. She finished the season with 890 points — the most any Wildcat, male or female, has scored in a single season.

Better than 2021?

UA coach Adia Barnes is more optimistic about where this year’s team is in its development after looking at film from November 2020 — the season the Wildcats played in the national championship game. Specifically, she looked at a game against USC, when the Wildcats hung on to win 78-77.

“We were atrocious,” Barnes said. “…That made me feel a little bit better because we're way further along now then we were back then, and (that year we) went to the Final Four. We're better defensively. We're better with our rotations, we’re better with some things then we were then and we were great at the end of the year.”

Barnes said the difference between how that squad played in the beginning and the end of the year "was like night and day."

He said it

"LMU is a team that offensively has good drivers, ball screen action, pistol action. We have to be able to defend the pick and roll action. And try to disrupt their elbow action. That’s the key defensively. Another thing looking more at us than them, I think we need to do a better job rebounding the ball and being disciplined on defense compared to the game that we played against Northridge. With this, I mean that we need to play disciplined. We don’t want to foul; we don’t want to put players on the free throw line.

"On offense, we need to be able to transition early and be able to read the mismatch. They switch a lot on screens. It’s a key for us and a good test for us is to read offensively. We have to get better at reading what the defense gives us. In this case, they switch a lot, so we have to look for the mismatch we have in the post or being able to give the ball back to our point guard to attack their big.” – UA assistant coach Salvo Coppa

Fun fact

LMU: Freshman Layla Curry’s older sister Jayda, who plays at Cal, was Pac-12 Freshman of the Year last season. Sophomore forward Ava Toone was the youngest player invited to tryout for Japan’s national team ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Arizona: Esmery Martinez put up 20 points, 15 rebounds, three assists, one steal and two blocks in the Wildcats' season-opening win. The last Wildcat to post that kind of statline was LaBrittney Jones, who put up 22 points, 15 rebounds, five assists, two steals and four blocks in a February 2017 win over Washington State. Jones' name is all over the UA record book for scoring, rebounds and blocks.

Numbers

1 – LMU has only one freshman on the roster – Layla Curry. Ten of the Lions' 13 players are upperclassmen.

3 – Arizona and LMU played three overtimes in 2009, with the Wildcats winning 93-88.

6 – Arizona ranks sixth in the nation in steals, averaging 16.5 steals per game.

—PJ Brown