Arizona's pesky defender Courtney Blakely grew up with basketball in her hands

Shortly after she was born on April 6, 2003, Courtney Blakely’s dad, Jermal, held her up toward the television set in the hospital room. Jermal wanted to watch one of that day’s NCAA Final Four women’s games with his new daughter.

Of course, Courtney, now a reserve guard for the Arizona women’s basketball team after transferring to the UA prior to this season, doesn’t exactly remember which game it was; it was either UConn-Texas or Tennessee-Duke. But the fact that she was a UConn fan growing up might give a little clue.

Practically born to love the game of basketball, her connection with the sport only grew from there.

Starting when she was 2 or 3 years old, she religiously had a basketball in her hands. She was always in the gym as her mom, Angela (Hamblin), who is a former WNBA player, was coaching.

“I would always dribble a ball around the gym and be the little kid that was on the side,” Blakely said. “But we got serious about it when I was 6 or 7, and that’s when we would have training sessions two or three times a day, working out and doing ball handling drills, form shooting and all that tough stuff.”

The kicker: it was her dad who was her first coach, not her mom.

Instead, Angela focused on making sure that her daughter was a well-rounded person with more than just basketball in her life. In addition, she put an emphasis on Courtney’s mental well-being. Her dad, Jermal, who played basketball at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa, was the one who pushed to teach her the game and worked on her fundamentals.

Together, they taught her the importance of an education; she is pursing her degree in accounting.

They also taught her how to approach the game as a team player. This season, she’s been a spark off the bench for the Wildcats — still hopeful of an NCAA Tournament at-large berth while playing one of the nation’s toughest schedules; her role in Tucson comes after spending last season at Middle Tennessee State where she split starting duties in her second season in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

“It’s something that was instilled in me as a young child from my parents; knowing your role and knowing when to say something, when to not say something; this stuff is important,” Blakely said. “And I just feel like for me that I’m comfortable enough with my teammates to say certain things or do certain things. It was something that I got from my parents.”

In those early sessions with her dad, they’d start out at seven in the morning and keep at it every single day. Her focus: offensive fundamentals.

At Bishop Noll High School near her hometown of Gary, Indiana, she scored 2,324 points — more than any male or female who played basketball at the school. She averaged 23 points as a junior, 20 as a senior.

And she’s made some incredible shots in her short time as a Wildcat, including a nearly half-court buzzer-beater at the end of the first quarter against Washington in the 90-82 triple-OT win at home on Feb. 18, and a side-step 3-pointer against that same team in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament last week as Arizona was pulling away at the end of the game.

“If I’m feeling good, and I feel like I can take the shot and I know that my teammates have the confidence in me to take the shot, then I would absolutely go and attack the basket or do whatever is necessary to score. So that’s setting up somebody else or as me taking the shot, I will do it,” Blakely said.

As for that side-step 3-pointer: “I know that I’m comfortable shooting sidestep threes on that side of the floor. It was a natural move, because I work on that.”

While her timely buckets have been important to the Wildcats, in an interesting twist she’s more noticed for her defense these days.

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That’s just fine with her.

“I knew that if I could stop someone on the other end of the floor, then I’m content,” Blakely said.

She’s also pesky — so pesky that Arizona coach Adia Barnes has said, “We always talk about the dog mentality — just being tough and gritty, just relentless. And Courtney is that. Courtney is like that itch in the middle of your back that you can’t reach. You have to find someone to scratch it. That’s what she does. That’s what I want her to do. That’s what she’s capable of doing.”

It doesn’t matter if she’s guarding someone her size — 5-8 — or someone much taller, she’s going to provide pressure and disrupt what they are trying to do.

Blakely hovers and is always ready to get in her opponent’s grill and pounce at any moment.

In that Pac-12 Tournament game against Washington last week, as the Wildcats were starting to distance themselves in the second quarter, Blakely’s presence was enough to alter the shot of three-inch taller Hannah Stines.

Blakely said it comes down to getting her opponent’s “moves down to see what they’re comfortable doing and making them uncomfortable and making them do other things that take their percentage down, like their precision, I guess you could say.”

And once her speed takes over, it’s over. In seconds after she grabs the ball she’s finishing on the other end of the court.

As the Wildcats get ready for postseason play — be it in the NCAA or the new WBIT bracket — they will be relying on Blakely for her timely shots, her defense, her speed and her team mentality.

“She’s just going to come in the game and bring that spark off the bench no matter if she plays 30 minutes or 20 minutes,” UA teammate Skylar Jones said. “It doesn’t matter she’s going to be a dog. She brings the intensity off the ball defensively, as well. She pressures the ball, gets a lot of steals, deflections. She makes a difference on the court.”

Rim shots

At 17-15, Arizona finds out its postseason fate during the NCAA Selection Show, Sunday at 5 p.m. on ESPN. The Wildcats are currently positioned as an 11 seed by bracketologists Charlie Creme from ESPN and Mark Schindler from The Athletic. Both Creme and Schindler have Arizona in a “First Four” game; if the Wildcats won that, they’d play again two days later in the round of 64.

If the Wildcats don’t make the NCAA Tournament, they would play in the new secondary tournament sponsored by the NCAA this season, WBIT, and most likely would host. The first game would be played on Thursday.

After Arizona’s final game of the regular season — a loss to then-No. 8 UCLA — newly-hired UA Desireé Reed-Francois could be seen hugging forward Isis Beh. Turns out both were at UNLV at the same time while Beh was a freshman and Reed-Francois the Rebels’ athletic director.

“I saw her and we automatically hugged after that game,” Reed-Francois said. “I told her, ‘I saw your first game as a freshman and now I see your last game as a senior that it’s kind of a full circle moment.’ And then I saw her parents at the Pac-12 tournament, and it was pretty special.”