Behind Esmery Martinez's 18 points, 15 boards, Arizona outruns ASU 63-52 win for season sweep

Hosting their arch-nemesis with every game being “must-win” at this point in the season, the Arizona Wildcats didn’t take the challenge lightly.

An 18-point, 15-rebound performance by UA fifth-year forward Esmery Martinez paced the Wildcats to a 63-52 win over ASU in front of the UA’s largest home crowd of the season — 8,210 fans in a “Red Out” at McKale Center on Sunday afternoon.

“I thought this was just a really good team effort,” UA head coach Adia Barnes said following the win, the fifth straight over the Sun Devils, giving Arizona the two-game sweep over its instate rivals this season.

“After not playing, we got some rest this week and then came back. I thought they had a really good focus from the start.”

Martinez, despite dealing with a migraine, poured in her fourth double-double of the season and third against ASU over the past two seasons.

Barnes said that Martinez’s status may have been limited pregame as her head was hurting but nonetheless, she shined through the pain.

“Esmery is a beast,” Barnes said. “If I can get 18 and 15 with a migraine, that’s pretty good, right?”

After drilling 65% of their 3-pointers in the 39-point victory against ASU in mid-December, the Wildcats’ method of attack was different but still effective. They took it inside and delivered 42 points in the paint.

In Arizona’s past two wins, it only took 11 3-pointers and delivered 38 made layups, which Barnes believes is a recipe for success for her team.

“That’s not our personnel to sit there and take a ton of 3s,” she said. “I prefer us going downhill.”

After a back-and-forth first half, the Wildcats were able to pull away after back-to-back layups by Courtney Blakely and a banked-in 3-pointer by Martinez to spark a 7-0 run to give Arizona an eight-point advantage at the start of the second quarter. Arizona converted 12-for-16 layup attempts in the half.

The Wildcats (12-10, 4-6 Pac-12) saw a defensive surge in the half with six blocks and three steals and only allowed ASU (10-12, 2-8) to shoot 28% from the floor. They also forced five turnovers that resulted in eight points off of them to help secure a 7-point lead at halftime.

After shooting just 28.1% from the field and 25% from 3-point range in the first half, the Sun Devils caught fire from the floor to start the second half going 6 of 9 and making two 3-pointers, which helped tie the game at 41 apiece.

Then, the UA avalanche erupted.

From two minutes left in the third quarter through the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, Arizona went on a 13-0 run over 5:42 minutes, highlighted by four points, two assists and one steal by fifth-year Wildcat Helena Pueyo and an and-one layup by freshman Skylar Jones, which ignited the Wildcat faithful and got them on their feet.

Barnes noticed that in the first half that Pueyo, who finished the game with 11 points in 37 minutes, was passive with her decision-making but talked to her about being more aggressive that “she makes great things happen” when she does play aggressive.

“Her looking to score, she’s gonna make the right move,” Barnes said. “But just being on attack mode, everything flows faster because she’s gonna make the right pass. She’s gonna shoot when she needs to and she did a great job.”

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Arizona would hold on to its comfortable lead with again a dominant defensive effort in the fourth quarter, forcing four turnovers, along with Breya Cunningham pouring in eight of her 11 points on a perfect 4 for 4 from the field to secure the victory. Cunningham, who has struggled with foul trouble in games past, was able to play a cleaner game, only committing three fouls.

“Breya, she just (does) freshman stuff,” Martinez said. “Sometimes, we try to pick her head up because sometimes she doesn’t foul because she likes to block. We feel like we really need her a lot. We just gotta keep working with her and keep talking to her.”

Barnes said that the team made some fourth-quarter on-ball adjustments that helped this run.

“I thought they did a better job of sticking to the game plan the correct way in the fourth quarter,” Barnes said.

A key for the UA’s 11-point win was Pueyo helping limit the Sun Devils’ leading scorer Jayln Brown, who came into the game averaging 17.5 points on 42.6% shooting, to 12 points on just 4-for-17 shooting.

“Helena is a good defender,” Barnes said. “Helena’s game, she’s grown so much, she plays on both ends of the floor and she’s really sneaky.”

The Wildcats, who only had seven players were able to limit 14 fouls against the Sun Devils, the third-fewest it’s committed in a game this season. Pueyo, who is 8-2 against the Sun Devils in her Wildcat career, attributed to this playing “smart” throughout the past week of practice.

“We talked the whole week, just be smart, know when to foul, when not to foul, and I think we did a pretty good job,” Pueyo said.

Arizona sophomore guard Kailyn Gilbert once again did not play for the UA and was in sweats, along with a back brace around her sweatshirt. Jones started her third straight game with Gilbert out, while the Wildcats also received heavy minutes again Blakely off the bench. The pair finished with 9 and 10 points, respectively.

Barnes said that Gilbert is “not available” and that she doesn’t know when she will be.

In the press room after the victory as Barnes conducted her postgame press conference, her son Matteo asked her if she just had fun winning, in which she gave him a lesson.

“Winning cures all,” Barnes said. “It’s when you’re not winning, people always want to find a story.”

The UA will next travel to California to take on the Los Angeles schools. The Wildcats will face No. 7 UCLA on Friday before a two-day break. They’ll then visit No. 15 USC on Monday, Feb. 12.

Photos: Arizona sweeps Arizona State at home in women's basketball, 63-52