Scouting report: No. 19 Arizona Wildcats vs. NAU Lumberjacks in home opener

Who: NAU (0-1) at No. 19 Arizona (0-0)

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)

NAU

G Regan Schenck (5-7 senior)

G/F Emily Rodabaugh (6-0 junior)

F Montana Oltrogge (6-0 grad transfer)

G/F Nyah Moran (5-11 sophomore)

F Fatoumata Jaiteh (6-1 sophomore)

Key players

NAU — Emily Rodabaugh

Rodabaugh shot 42.3% from 3-point range to place second all-time in NAU history for a single season. The was also good enough for 15th in the nation.

Arizona — Jade Loville

Loville was one of the top additions in the off-season for Arizona. She averaged 16.6 points last season at ASU — the second leading scorer in the Pac-12. Her skillset has grown over the off-season as she is driving to the hoop. Loville will be harder to guard as this opens up her outside shot even more. As a 76% free throw shooter, expect to see her at the line more this season. In the two exhibition games she went 6 of 7 from the charity stripe.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Series history

The Wildcats are 32-6 all-time against NAU.

Arizona’s 84-66 loss to NAU in 2017 snapped the Lumberjacks 20-game losing streak to Pac-10/Pac-12 opponents dating back to 1988.

He said it

“First of all, NAU had a very good game against Arizona State. They played really good basketball. They always have four shooters on the court. The first thing is being able to guard the three and we need to have much more individual responsibility on our player. We can't force too many rotations because they're very good moving the ball and hitting the open 3. They are looking to score early. It looks like they all have the green light to shoot 3s when they are open. We have to do a very good job guarding the three.

"Offensively, we need to do a better job moving the ball and giving the ball inside, which doesn't necessarily mean that we have to finish with a post move. By giving the ball inside and then give it on the opposite side, (it) forces our opponent to close out on us. We have to what we do well already — run in transition. If I'm right, we forced 25 turnovers in both (exhibition) games. We need to keep doing that because we're very good in transition and this is one of the ways that we can run — forcing turnovers in the game.” — UA assistant coach Salvo Coppa, who scouted the Lumberjacks

Sidelines

Bring the noise

The last name NAU played in Tucson was  Nov. 29, 2020 — the season that no fans were allowed in the arena because of COVID-19. NAU coach Loree Payne said the Lumberjacks will be prepared this time around. No extra crowd noise in practice this week.

“Our practices are very loud anyways, we always have music going,” Payne said. “We're going to let them (players) know as much as we can of what that's going to be like, but it's not something that we're going to spend a whole bunch of extra time just trying to simulate that that noise.”

NAU is 0-1, having lost its season opener to ASU in Tempe. Payne said the Lumberjacks had no film on the Sun Devils, who open the season with a new coach.

“I think with Arizona they've been an established program that has been doing some really great things for the past couple of years. I don't expect them to change that much,” Payne said. “They have a few personnel changes, but as far as just systematically, we know they're going to be incredibly athletic; they're going to score, they're going to pressure us defensively. And you know, they have some very, very talented individual players.”

Fun facts

Arizona: The transfer class of Esmery Martinez, Lauren Fields and Loville add an average of 39% shooting. Eight of 12 Wildcats are 5-11 or taller.

NAU: Freshman guard Audrey Taylor plays the violin. Senior forward Sanjana Ramesh, who is from Bangalore, Karnataka, India, is the first Indian-born player to earn a DI scholarship. Payne found her in the NBA Academy.

Numbers game

10 — Times that NAU’s "big four" — Schenk, Rodabaugh and the Moran twins (Olivia and Nyah) — have Big Sky Conference All-Academic teams.

13 — Rodabaugh finished with 13 points in last year’s game. She was the only Lumberjack who scored in double figures.

3— Arizona’s Helena Pueyo had three steals in last year’s win over NAU in Flagstaff. She finished with 50 for the season.

— PJ Brown