Sometimes all it takes is a little extra motivation.
The Wildcats had that in spades Thursday.
It was rivalry week, after all.
As forward Trinity Baptiste said earlier in the week: “This is a game you don’t lose.”
Her teammates took that to heart as they smashed ASU 65-37 at McKale Center Thursday.
No. 6 Arizona improves to 4-0, 3-0 in Pac-12 and ASU drops to 4-2, 1-2 in Pac-12.
With the win, Arizona improves to 3-0 in league play for the first time in 17 years. The Wildcats have beat the Sun Devils the last three times in McKale Center.
“We knew it was going to be a war, like ‘Survivor’,” Aari McDonald said. “You always have a boost, like energy, motivation. We just knew take no prisoners from the jump. We told the newcomers, ‘Hey, this is not going to be a walk in the park. We’ve got to bring it from start to finish.’ I think we did that today.”
Many Wildcats had a hand in the win, yet it was McDonald who led the way with 22 points, seven rebounds, three assists, and one steal.
She took charges and found her form beyond the arc. She made 5 of 11 3-pointers.
At the start of the third quarter, McDonald hit three shots in a row to extend Arizona’s lead to 23 points and force ASU to call a timeout to try to slow her roll.
In that quarter, UA held ASU to 36.4% shooting on 4 of 11 field goals. The Sun Devils only shot 26.9% for the game.
UA coach Adia Barnes switched up her starting lineup for the first time. She started Bendu Yeaney in place of Shaina Pellington.
Yeaney gives them energy — she started off the scoring in this game with a corner three and adds hustle plays that don’t end up in the stat sheet. At the end of the half, she elevated to get a rebound, tipped the ball to herself and put up a shot 10 feet away from where she started and drew a foul.
Arizona was clicking on all cylinders early on – which is one of the things they worked on with more intensity in practice over the last three days.
The UA defense altered shots, narrowed the lanes and forced errant passes.
To top it off, they forced ASU into shot clock violations and late shot attempts. Arizona forced two in the first half — one with 7:17 left in the first quarter after a double team by Cate Reese and McDonald. The other came with less than a minute left in the half.
Sam Thomas was all over the ball on defense, gabbing a steal and blocking two shots by halftime. She also hit her first three-pointer of the season — one deep from the top of the key.
“It was a relief,” Thomas said. “I definitely knew I was 0 for 9 coming in or 0 for 8, whatever. But my teammates were just having my back. It’s just a mental block at that point. Once I got my first three, I was like, ‘OK, now I’m ready to go, I’m ready to roll I got the feel for it.’”
Helena Pueyo had three steals. One of them came in the second quarter after hitting two three-pointers, she grabbed the ball and passed to McDonald, who hit a three.
Reese added 13 points and seven rebounds and was the only other Wildcat in double-figures.
“I think we had a really good team win today,” Barnes said. “I thought that we shared the ball better, it was less sloppy offense. I thought our bench did a really good job. I thought we were on point and locked in defensively, besides one quarter when we were fouled a little bit too much. … I thought we had a solid defensive day. I mean, to hold told ASU to 27% and 37 points, that’s some really good defense.”
Rim shots• UA had 24 points off turnovers and out rebounded ASU 37-34.
• Arizona held ASU to only 18 points in the first two frames and finished with only seven points in the last quarter, even using more from the bench with 13 seeing action.
