During practice last season, Jada Williams drove to the basket. Her then-Arizona teammate, Kailyn Gilbert, clotheslined her.
“She got her head taken off,” UA coach Adia Barnes recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’”
Michael Lev is a senior writer/columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson.com and The Wildcaster.
Williams was a freshman at the time, trying to establish herself as the on-court leader of the Wildcats, who open the 2024-25 season Monday against UT Arlington. It wasn’t the first time she’d been knocked to the floor.
“She didn’t go try to fight her,” Barnes said. “She popped back up. It hurt. She was in tears a little bit. She was fighting back her tears and ready to play again.
“I’ve seen a lot of incidents like that, where she just gets back up like, ‘OK, let’s go.’”
Pound for pound, Williams is the toughest player on the UA women’s basketball team. At 5-foot-8, 140 pounds, she’s often the smallest player on the court. She never retreats from a challenge. No Wildcat is feistier or peskier. None is more willing to sacrifice her body for the cause.
Arizona guard Jada Williams, left, comes in to swipe the ball from West Texas A&M guard Lacey Rice late in the fourth quarter of their exhibition game on Oct. 25 at McKale Center.
“She’s gonna do whatever it takes to win,” fellow sophomore Skylar Jones said. “She’s not scared. Point blank. Period.”
If you thought this Instagram influencer who has 643,000 followers and multiple NIL deals would be more about glamour than grit, you were mistaken.
“She’s been bruised up from head to toe pretty much her whole life,” said Williams’ mother, Jill McIntyre. “If there’s a loose ball, no matter where it is on the court, you’re going to see her on the floor.”
‘Tears, temper tantrums, fistfights’
Williams didn’t become this way after she started playing for Barnes, who described her own style of play back in the day with a word we can’t print here.
Williams is the youngest of six siblings. That’s where it began.
Arizona guard Jada Williams (2) comes up with possession between West Texas A&M post Gloria Fornah (10), top, and guard Claire Graham (23) on Oct. 25.
“I always grew up being the young one, getting bullied,” Arizona’s starting point guard said. “They push you down. They lock you out of the room. They tease you, hit you. Just normal sibling stuff.”
Williams’ older siblings were athletes, but they played other sports. Williams had a Nerf basketball in her hand when she was just learning to walk, her mom told me. It was her favorite toy.
Williams first played competitive basketball in a YMCA youth league in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. The director moved her to the boys league because “she was stealing the ball too much” from the kindergarten and first-grade girls, McIntyre said.
“She was too aggressive,” said McIntyre, a software sales rep who also serves as Williams’ “momager.”
“She has a competitive side to her.”
That manifests itself on the court and off it. Board games back home (the family moved to the San Diego area when Williams was in high school) are notoriously heated. Williams hates to lose. Her siblings are the same way.
Arizona guard Jada Williams, left, fights USC guard Kayla Williams for a loose ball during the second half of their game at McKale Center on Feb. 29.
“Board games at Christmastime get really competitive,” Williams said. “Probably ruins Christmas every year, but that’s just how it goes.”
“Tears, temper tantrums, fistfights,” McIntyre said. “Somebody always goes to bed mad.”
The Wildcats’ UNO games are just as intense. Coincidence? Probably not.
There have been nights “where we’re yelling at each other at the top of our lungs,” veteran forward Isis Beh said. “It gets really serious.”
The loser of an UNO game has to do “legendaries” — a series of leg raises, crunches and other unfun exercises. Williams sometimes does them just for the heck of it to get an ab workout in.
Going beyond
One area where Williams has no peer on the UA roster is taking charges. She dreamt of playing in college and the WNBA when she was a kid. She watched a ton of basketball. She saw how drawing a charge could change a game.
“She would see them taking charges so she would try it herself, even in elementary school, where you didn’t see kids doing that,” McIntyre said. “As a parent it scared the crap out of me many times because she’s not the biggest player.”
San Diego’s Eri Blithikioti (23) runs into Arizona’s Jada Williams (2) on her way to the goal during their game at McKale Center on Dec. 7, 2023.
Taking a charge is a painful experience. It’s not for everyone. Williams’ best bud, 6-4 center Breya Cunningham, told me she’s never taken one. “That’s a long way down,” she said. “A very long way down.”
It isn’t as steep a fall for Williams. But it still hurts. She doesn’t care.
“That’s a momentum shifter,” Williams said. “That’s probably one of my favorite things to do in basketball. Just because the crowd gets hyped. It kills the offense’s momentum. I love taking charges.”
The NCAA doesn’t tabulate charges drawn. But Barnes has her team managers track player activity in practice. The Wildcats call it “Go Beyond,” and it includes hustle plays and other team-oriented gestures. Williams always ranks first or second.
Be it practice or games, Williams never shies away from a physical conflict. Against Utah last season, defensive switches sometimes left her guarding Alissa Pili in the post. The Minnesota Lynx list Pili at 6-foot-2, 235 pounds. It’d be hard to find a bigger mismatch than Williams vs. Pili. And yet ...
Arizona guard Jada Williams heaves a desperation pass forward after winning a race to the ball near midcourt against UCLA at McKale Center on March 2.
“She’s not afraid,” Barnes said. “She’s gonna get elbowed in the head and take a foul before she’s gonna not do it. Some girls (just) put up their hands and (don’t) want to bump. She’s gonna go fight.
“You can’t teach that. A player has that or doesn’t. You can make someone a little bit more competitive; you could put them in tough situations. But you can’t change someone’s mentality. You are the way you are. (It’s in) your DNA.”
“When I’m down there,” Williams said of her post battles with Pili and other bigs, “I don’t think about anything else but, ‘How do I stop her?’ Just doing everything I can to use my little body against her.”
Earning respect
Williams is the type of player you love to have as a teammate — but hate to play against. She reminds Barnes of one of her former adversaries, DeLisha Milton-Jones, in that regard.
“When we scrimmage in practice, I hate playing against her,” Cunningham said of Williams, her teammate now and in high school at La Jolla Country Day. “She’s always loud, always talking. But when we’re in a real game, it’s great.”
USC center Rayah Marshall falls over Arizona guard Jada Williams during the second half of their game in the quarterfinal round of the Pac-12 Tournament on March 7 in Las Vegas.
Williams can be a pest on the court. An instigator even.
“She’s going to get in your ear, get on your nerves,” her mom said. “She’ll get under the skin of players she’s not even guarding.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m a pest,” Williams said. “But you can definitely tell I lead my team and I’m gonna do things that the other team’s not gonna like.”
Williams’ mindset once caught her coach off guard. In the sixth game of her freshman campaign, Williams played a season-low six minutes vs. Ole Miss. It was the only game in which she didn’t score. Barnes expected Williams to sulk.
“But she was in the front of the film session,” Barnes said. “She probably was upset, but she didn’t show it. (It was) just like, ‘Hey, I’m here to learn again.’ I really respected her after that.”
Toughness shows up in different ways. Sometimes it comes in small packages.
“She’s resilient. She doesn’t back down,” Barnes said. “She’ll do whatever is needed and whatever you ask.”
