Being 'intentional,' and 'strategic' key to Arizona women's basketball win over UC San Diego

Four days.

That was the time between the Arizona women’s basketball team’s tough road loss to UNLV and the Wildcats’ next game — Thursday’s home matchup with UC San Diego.

It’s clear UA coach Adia Barnes and her players put that time to good use to get the Wildcats back on track. So much so that they held the Tritons 31 points under their average and ran to an 81-38 win at McKale Center.

It took a lot to get to this point.

First, the Wildcats had to watch the first half of the UNLV game. Barnes had them count all the points they had given up from simple and uncharacteristic mistakes like a ball being taken away from them or not going hard after a 50/50 ball. Then they had to grade themselves. It wasn’t a passing mark; the film won’t lie.

What the Wildcats saw was a lack of intensity. Call it energy, call it heart, call it toughness — it’s the thing that Arizona teams under Barnes usually have in spades.

After lots of discussions and more work on the court, the Wildcats turned it back around against UC San Diego.

Jada Williams, who was a spark for her teammates on both defense and offense (15 points, five steals), said the Wildcats are closer than ever and playing for each other.

The keys to the performances on Thursday night all began before the Wildcats even took the court.

Barnes changed her starting lineup to give them a boost right from the tip. That meant going a little smaller by inserting the 5-8 Williams instead of the 6-4 Maya Nnaji. It also meant Esmery Martinez sliding back to her natural four position in the post. Martinez has been playing as a guard or wing in the three position a lot in the early going this season.

Going into every game there is a plan; but against UC San Diego it was taken to the next level.

Everything was “strategic” and “intentional,” Barnes said.

While it may have taken nearly three minutes for either team to put points on the board — a jumper by Kailyn Gilbert — all the Wildcats were engaged. Martinez had a block and Gilbert picked up the defensive rebound. Helena Pueyo grabbed another defensive rebound and Williams picked her first steal in those first few minutes.

On defense, the UA played what has characteristically become known as Arizona defense. There were active hands getting in the opponent’s grill and rattling them.

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“I thought we did a much better job to starting off the game with more intensity,” Barnes said.

“If you watched the UNLV game and this game, a much different start for us. And that was intentional. I thought we shared the ball better than we have all season. So that was also intended. I know a couple of fans were like, ‘Ah,’ when we passed up shots, but there was a strategic plan, and we had some rules to follow.

“I think that as we progress and get older, and more mature and just more experienced, you don’t have to put those rules in place. Right now, where we’re at and who we are and what we need, is we need that. It shows because our efficiency was the best it’s been by far. So, it worked.”

Arizona shot 52% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc against UC San Diego.

Even when Nnaji went out in the first quarter after someone landed on her leg and as Barnes said, “It kind of folded,” others stepped up until she returned in the third quarter.

When Martinez was a bit sore after nearly seven minutes of action in the first half, Barnes had her sit the rest of the game. Isis Beh, who won the team’s ‘Glue’ award after the game, was communicating, playing smart around the basket and helping her teammates.

However, it was more than just intently watching film this week; the UA watches film every week, but not to this extent. Barnes narrowed the focus for her team to do a few things really well, instead of having to remember everything. One of those things was taking advantage of opportunities like converting on turnovers.

Against UNLV, the Wildcats forced 12 turnovers and turned those into six points. Against UC San Diego, it was 28 turnovers and 38 points.

Barnes took it one step further. She showed her players advanced analytics around their shooting and efficiency. The Wildcats could clearly see that when they took certain shots, they were more efficient, and that’s the goal.

“We got open slots which are higher percentage shots,” Barnes said. “We didn’t take all these jack-up threes. We took wide open ones down the stretch, and that’s after ball movement and those are shots we want. I think it was good to stick to it.”

This was a relatively big jump game over game, but it will be a work in progress as Arizona has three difficult games coming up. That starts with facing No. 5 Texas on Wednesday in Tucson, then the Pac-12 opener the following Sunday at rival ASU and a few days later in Phoenix against No. 23 Gonzaga, which knocked off a then-No. 3 Stanford last week.

Among what Barnes wants the Wildcats to work on: continue to decrease their turnovers, better rebounding and getting into rotations, among other elements of their game.

But, on Thursday night, it was a win for the Wildcats in a number of ways.

“I think the main thing was intensity and effort and consistent effort,” Barnes said. “You saw it we had a little lull in the third quarter, but then we came back and got better. We’re not at the point where we’ve played over 30 minutes of great basketball, but we will.

“We’re doing things much better and much more consistent and we have to continue to do that. We have a lot of areas to improve on but we got better this game. So that’s why I’m optimistic and we’re playing some really good teams coming up but they were able to do things I challenged them to do and the things we focused on for the last several days.”