Arizona basketball: Jada Williams' energy, heart reminds Adia Barnes of Plum, McDonald, Thomas

Jada Williams didn’t take any possessions off in Arizona’s 89-52 win over Seattle Sunday afternoon.

She drove to the basket and scored just 25 seconds into the game. Then, she forced Seattle into a 10-second violation; on the very next defensive possession she drew a charge.

Williams finished with a career-high 18 points connecting on 7 of 9 from the field and a perfect 4 for 4 from the line.

Williams was aggressive on defense, crowding her opponent and narrowing the passing lanes. She may not have collected any steals but she was disruptive and brought energy. The latter is what Arizona coach Adia Barnes said separates Williams from others.

“She’s a worker; she’s a dog. She’s plays with heart and hustle,” Barnes said. “She’s consistent with her effort and energy every day. And I always talked about that with Sam (Thomas). As a coach, you want consistency. You want to see how people show up every day, and that’s who they are. So good days, bad days, finals, breaking up girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. It’s like, what are you going to do consistently? And she’s great consistently. And that’s why I think she’s going to be great.”

It’s evident that Williams has grown during the non-conference slate. She is getting more comfortable in the Wildcats system with every game and is starting to show the court vision that she was known for in high school.

Over the last four games, which has included then No. 5 Texas and then No. 20 Gonzaga, she is averaging 3.5 assists per game. Her defense has also improved.

And then there is Williams’ mentality, which reminds Barnes of two of her former players: UA standout Aari McDonald and Washington’s Kelsey Plum — both of whom are now in the WNBA and were teammates for one season at UW when Barnes was an assistant in Seattle.

Plum has won back-to-back championships with the Las Vegas Aces, while McDonald will be entering her fourth year playing for the Atlanta Dream this spring.

“(Jada) will never be the quickest, she’ll never jump the highest, she’ll never be the biggest but she’s got a big heart and that’s how Kelsey Plum was,” Barnes said.

“If you look at Kelsey Plum in college, she couldn’t guard anybody her first year, but when you work and you’re determined, and you have a certain mentality, you’re gonna get there. Jada has that and she’s going to be a really good player. Jada is the type of kid and player that if I said, ‘Jada, you gotta go play the five.’ She’d be like, ‘Against her? OK.’ She’s like, ‘I got you.’ She doesn’t care. That’s how Aari was. She’d be like, ‘OK, coach. I’ll try. I might foul out.’”

Williams has two other things in common with Plum. They both played at La Jolla Country Day and were recruited and coached by Barnes.

New year, hopefully better luck

The injuries have been piling up since preseason. It started with Montaya Dew having season-ending surgery in August on her ACL.

Once the Wildcats moved into October, Cunningham was resting because her knee was sore. Williams was wearing a boot as her Achilles was sore — even into the season, and it has affected her three-point shot.

Helena Pueyo strained her quad. Esmery Martinez had migraines and gets beat up in every game. Skylar Jones was in concussion protocol for the UNLV game.

Sali Kourouma has played with a dislocated shoulder all non-conference, re-injured it and sat out of the Seattle game.

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Courtney Blakely got a bloody nose and headache during the Seattle game. She also had to file extra paperwork with the NCAA to play at Arizona and sat out the first four games of the season.

Erin Tack, the walk on who also throws javelin on UA’s track and field team, hurt her knee in practice soon after she came on board.

And, of course, Maya Nnaji left the team prior to the Texas game to focus on her academics and her goal of become a doctor.

That’s a lot for one team to face such a short span.

Barnes said she was happy that “2024 is here.”

“In my career (as a head coach) in my eight years here, we had never had an ACL (injury). Montaya is the first,” Barnes said. “It’s just uncharted territory for me and practice is challenging. It’s really hard not having numbers because when you have such a small roster, you can’t have a lot of repetitions in practice, because you won’t sustain it. Sometimes in practice the loads are heavier than games. We went like 45 minutes yesterday. Really short. Having the balance of that and getting better is hard, especially when you don’t have practice players as the school’s out right now. I think that’s going to be a challenge for us for a while.”

More basketball?

Nnaji has been posting online that she’s not done with basketball. Barnes said she will talk to Nnaji at the end of the season.

“This is a choice that Maya has to make, because is it at Arizona or somewhere else?” Barnes said. “There’s a lot of different medical schools all over the country. Obviously, we love Maya; I have a relationship with her. I do support her because I understand the demands. I understand what her dream is — and her aspirations to be a doctor. That was good to hear this because I thought she was done. But then I think that when you step away, I think you always miss it.”

Showing out

Both UA men’s and women’s teams played at the same time on Sunday afternoon — with the men losing to Stanford 100-82 in Palo Alto. One might think that the crowd at McKale Center for the women’s win over Seattle might be smaller than usual. But not only did the fans show up to support the women’s team (7,500) but it was the biggest crowd of the season — even larger than when the Wildcats played then-No. 5 Texas (7.261) on Dec. 13. Arizona is averaging 6,930 in attendance for six home games.

Future Cats

Arizona started its Future Cats program Sunday morning before the game against Seattle. There are four more sessions this season for boys and girls in second to seventh grades to spend time learning basketball with current Wildcats. For information on how to sign up contact Gina deLutio at gdelutio@arizona.edu.

Photos: Arizona Wildcats knock off Seattle 89-52 in nonconference finale, women's college basketball