Arizona
Arizona women’s basketball overcomes slow start to defeat Cal State LA in exhibition
Exhibitions are to try things and work them out. Arizona women’s basketball took advantage of that in an 82-53 win against Cal State L.A. in its final exhibition Tuesday evening.
“We’re getting better,” said Arizona head coach Adia Barnes. “We’re not where we need to be at all, but much improved from last game, I think. But you know, we’re kind of starting off slow, so I don’t know if we’re kind of waiting around. I don’t know why, but we are. We are improving, and practice has been really tough. So I knew today they weren’t coming out for us, which is fine, because we got to work through. We got to get in a little better shape. Overall, I thought we did some good things. Good film.”
Barnes started with the experimentation from the very start. After sending out a starting lineup of Jada Williams, Skylar Jones, Paulina Paris, Breya Cunningham, and Isis Beh in the first exhibition, she made a change for the second. Freshman Mailien Rolf took the floor for the opening whistle while Jones remained on the bench.
“I thought Mailien has given us consistent energy, consistently a great teammate,” Barnes said. “She’s coachable. She plays hard. I know what to expect from her day in and day out, and I really value that. So that’s why. She never has a bad attitude. She never has poor body language, and that’s the standard. So, if you’re gonna not have those things, you’re not gonna start here. I don’t care how good you are….She was 0-for-2, but she still gave really good minutes, because there’s so many other things I value, and she does so many little things, and she’s one of the few that really pressures the ball right now.”
Rolf has experience focusing on things like rebounding and defense while playing with high-scoring teammates in Germany’s international program. Barnes agreed that her international experience is showing through in college.
“Some players they predicate everything on offense and scoring,” Barnes said. “And I think she just plays and isn’t afraid to do the dirty work and does whatever you ask. So that’s something I really value. And she dives on the floor. She can…play the 1,2, 3. She doesn’t care, and I like that. So she’s gonna get better. She has a nice shot too, and she’s smart and she gets it, but the effort, the energy, and how she is and who she is what I really value.”
It may have been a message to Jones after last week when she showed some of the frustration that sidetracked her early in her freshman season. If so, she took it in stride and made up for lost time when she got on the floor.
The sophomore led the Wildcats with six points in the first quarter despite not starting. She ended the night with a team-high 16 points on 7-for-10 shooting. She also had two assists and two steals.
“It was good to get a vibe with the game, coming off the bench, and see what I can do to help my team,” Jones said. “I’m just trying to do whatever I can help my teammates win. So that was my role, just figuring out what that was…Was it scoring, defense, getting stops… encouraging all the freshmen in the trenches…because I know how it feels to feel lost out there, because it was me a few months ago…So that’s my role, too.”
Williams’ did not shoot as well in the early going as she did in the first exhibition, but she made her presence known in other ways until her scoring fell into place. She scored 15 points again, although she only went 1-for-4 from 3-point distance. This time, she did it on drives to the basket and free throws, going 5-for-8 from inside the arc and 2-for-2 from the line.
More importantly, Williams played tough defense and kept her head up on the fastbreak, finding teammates running the floor for easy buckets. She also found her teammates inside on a regular basis. The results were team highs in assists (5) and steals (7).
“She is a way better floor leader, way better at taking care of the basketball, way better, way better defensively, her quickness, her strength, all that she showed,” Barnes said. “So all the work she put on her body is showing with her athleticism. Her feet are quicker. And the other thing is, she’s really focused on shooting the ball better, and she shoots a lot better, so you can’t go under. Like you saw last game, people went under an on-ball and she hit threes.”
Cunningham scored 14 points, many coming on the end of Williams’ assists. The sophomore center also had six rebounds and one assist.
Williams felt the connections between herself, Cunningham, Jones, and Beh were about more than basketball.
“We work a lot on transition,” Williams said. “We’re a transition team, so being comfortable in chaos and transition is something that we work on a lot. Knowing where to look and who has the hot hand is a big one. But also we’re best friends, us four. We hang out all the time. These are really my sisters, so I think that camaraderie on the court shows and we trust each other. We’re comfortable with each other. We can hold each other accountable. That’s huge for us.”
Paris had her second straight strong outing since becoming a Wildcat. The junior ended with nine points, three rebounds, four assists, and one steal. On defense, she wasn’t afraid to get on the floor and fight for loose balls.
“For her, it is really getting comfortable in the system,” Williams said. “She was injured, so she didn’t play games in a couple months. So her just getting to feel the game again and getting comfortable in our system, she got way better…We’re going to need her to put up numbers in all the categories.”
Beh was the glue player, doing a little bit of everything. Like Paris, she was diving for loose balls. Like Williams, she was getting her hands in the passing lanes with six steals. Like both of her smaller teammates, she was setting up the offense with three assists. She also had two rebounds and a block.
“Most bigs are afraid to get on the floor,” Barnes said.
Beh and Williams also showed the leadership that Barnes said has improved since their first year in the program.
“I named (Beh) and Jada captains the other day,” the coach said. “So it’s a big responsibility, and it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard, but I think (Beh) deserves that. I think she looks like a fifth year. She acts like a fifth year, and she’s not afraid to do that. Those little things matter…playing hard and diving on the floor, bringing energy and being a good teammate, being great on defense.”
All of Arizona’s available players got into the game. Forward Montaya Dew was not dressed for the game, joining grad transfer Ajae Yoakum on the bench. Barnes said Dew is on antibiotics for strep throat, so she was allowed to be on the bench but couldn’t play.
The Wildcats had another slow start on the defensive end. They allowed the Golden Eagles to shoot 52.2 percent over the first half.
Arizona started on a 6-0 run before allowing CSULA to go on an 11-0 run to take the five-point lead. The Wildcats started putting things together offensively when Jones entered the game. Sahnya Jah broke the team’s five-minute scoring drought, then Jones scored six straight for UA.
Barnes was pleased with some of the improvements Jah made since the first game but believes they were just the first steps.
“I am happy for Jah today, too, because she played a lot harder like she had a sense of urgency,” Barnes said. “I know she got mad when we all yelled at her on the fastbreak and we had the last possession. But teaching them it’s the last possession, we don’t want to take that shot and give them another chance to shoot. It’s not about now. It’s about when games are closer. So I knew she’s gonna take that layup from, like, way in the back, where you see in her eyes. It’s like her eyes are lighting up. But she’s playing harder. She’s getting in better shape. Now they’re working into five, six minutes, seven minutes. Before, after two minutes, they were kind of struggling. But that stuff’s gonna come. She’s gonna continue to get better.”
The Wildcats kept CSULA from taking as many shots in the second quarter, but the Golden Eagles still hit 57.1 percent of the shots they took. If not for UA hitting 68.8 percent on the other end, the game would have been much tighter. As it was, the Wildcats went into the locker room leading 47-33.
Like their first exhibition, the ‘Cats had more success keeping the opponent from scoring in the third quarter. The Golden Eagles scored just eight points on 25 percent shooting in the third frame.
As with any coach during exhibitions, Barnes thinks there are plenty of things to fix—from conditioning to playing better as a group to boxing out.
“We did a really poor job of today, like two feet in the paint on the weak side,” Barnes said. “We kind of have some rules for defense, and we were not doing that. We gave up some layups. So they were shooting…a little over 50 percent the first half. So those are things we can’t have happen, especially we’re asking someone to kind of pressure the ball, they’re going to get beat, so we…don’t want to give up layups in our defense. So, definitely have to improve there. But I think second half…when you’re more tired, we’re doing better. So that just shows me that we’re not really focused on the details, and some of us don’t have an understanding.”
Arizona has just under a week to get some of those things right before UT Arlington comes to town on Monday, Nov. 4 for the first game that counts.
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics
We will preview every player on the Cardinals roster leading up to training camp. This is about LB Mack Wilson.
The Arizona Cardinals report to training camp on July 22 and begin the process of preparing for the regular season, forming the roster and determining starting jobs and roles on the team.
Leading up to the start of camp, we will take a look at every player on the offseason roster, their background, their contract, their play in 2025, questions they face and their roster outlook.
Here is linebacker Mack Wilson.
Mack Wilson background, 2025 season
Wilson enters his eighth NFL season and third with the Cardinals. He entered the league in 2019 as a fifth-round draft pick by the Cleveland Browns out of Alabama. He played three seasons for the Browns and two for the New England Patriots before signing a three-year contract in free agency in 2024.
Last season, he replaced Kyzir White as the starting “Mike” linebacker and played in eight games before a rib injury at the end of the Cardinals’ Week 8 win over the Dallas Cowboys caused him to miss the final nine games of the season.
In eight games, he had 60 total tackles, three tackles for loss, a quarterback hit, an interception, six pass breakups and a forced fumble.
Mack Wilson contract details, salary cap hit
Wilson enters the final year of his three-year, $12.75 million contract. He will make nearly $3.4 million in salary in 2026 and count more than $4.7 million against the salary cap.
Roster outlook, questions he faces
Wilson is a lock to make the team and is going to be the team’s starting “Mike” linebacker. He is a leader in the locker room and trusted by defensive coordinator Nick Rallis.
Will he be able to lead a better defense? Will he get a contract extension before he becomes a free agent next year?
Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
Arizona biologists relocate beavers to help restore wetlands
Arizona Game and Fish biologists are moving beavers from locations where they can be a nuisance to areas where they can contribute to conservation.
Laura Roche understands the imperative of curbing carbon emissions to prevent climate change from supercharging wildfires to “megafire” status. But she’s also aware that such steps won’t solve the problem right away, even if the entire world got their act together on addressing climate change this instant.
“People get tired” just talking about reducing emissions, she said. Even as smoke lingers in the air from the Pocket Megafire that was burning less than 10 miles away, she knows it won’t be a helpful conversation. “But there are other things that can definitely improve the situation,” she added.
Roche, a Cottonwood resident who works in Sedona, has one suggestion in mind: reintroducing beavers.
Beavers are North America’s largest rodents, with a flair for dam building. Their structures create strings of ponds and vital belts of lush vegetation, which can help prevent and mitigate fires in the region, simply because beavers help wetlands stay wet.
Community interest in beavers is stirring among Sedona residents and workers, who have watched warily in recent weeks as the Pocket Fire raged. They’re circulating YouTube videos about the power of these humble animals to terraform landscapes and reduce fire risk in a fire-prone region.
As of July 15, the Pocket Fire has burned 27,400 acres and is 83% contained.
Roche herself has been sharing the science of beavers with government officials in forest planning meetings, customers, customers and friends across the political spectrum.
“I’ve had nothing but positive support for the idea,” she said.
The science seems to check out. Emily Fairfax is a beaver scientist at the University of Minnesota, and also a beaver evangelist.
“You cannot restore streams that were originally made by beavers and shaped by beavers —without also bringing back the beavers,” she said.
How beavers help mitigate wildfires
Beavers are slow creatures that sorely lack in the physical department — but make up for it with their brilliant minds. They build dams to create deep pools, and there they build island dens to deter land predators. They also construct a network of canals along rivers to facilitate forage without leaving the safety of the water. A single beaver family can service a mile-long strip of wetland.
“It’s incredible how large scale their engineering is,” Fairfax said. There’s a joke among her peers about these crafty animals: “If you have a problem, there’s a beaver for that.”
With a dam in the way, surface water, such as storm runoff, has time to seep into the ground, recharging groundwater in the process. The retained moisture encourages plant growth, especially crucial in times of drought. Studies have shown that beaver-managed streams have more abundant vegetation than a landscape without.
Beavers can thrive in all kinds of riparian ecosystems, including drylands. There, the rodents seek out groundwater springs and excavate their ponds to expand storage capacity.
Beaver families have been observed to frolic in the concrete hearts of California’s San Jose, Portland, Denver and even in metro Phoenix. As long as reeds and trees are present as a food source, beavers can make it work, using rocks, trash and whatever they can find as construction material.
Fairfax has found that beaver wetlands are more fire- and drought-resilient than any other kind of riparian zone bereft of beavers. That’s because beavers work incessantly to maintain their dams and ponds.
“It’s life or death for the beaver to have that wetland,” she said. “So every moment of the beaver’s day, it’s like, how do I make sure this place stays wet?”
During a wildfire, the footprint of beavers makes a difference. It’s harder for lightning struck fires to spread on beaver-managed wetlands, as green vegetation is much less fire-prone. The network of rivers and beaver-made canals can act as a fire break to slow the progression of wildfire.
The wet pockets of beaver habitat also provide refuge for animals fleeing from fires. In 2021, the Beckwourth megafire scorched more than 105,000 acres north of California’s Lake Tahoe but spared a web of lush riparian corridors on the floodplain — sites where beavers had dammed and dug and developed before the blaze hit.
Will beaver reintroduction work?
Beavers ruled North America for 7.5 million years, in numbers up to 200 million strong. Up to a billion beaver dams peppered the landscape. Pretty much every river on the continent had resident beavers, except for predator-plied places such as the Everglades, where there are alligators.
Fur trapping in the 1820s nearly caused beavers to go extinct. Today, only 10% of their historic population are found in waterways.
In Arizona, beavers are still widely distributed across the state, but in scant numbers. Reintroduction programs have helped sustain their populations, though their abundance is still far from their heyday.
Along the San Pedro River, also historically called Beaver River, reside an estimated 38 beavers. Arizona Game and Fish Department experts have been relocating beavers here since 1999. But the San Pedro’s beaver count is still declining, likely due to drought that has strained water levels, drying up their moated homes and suppressing cottonwood regeneration.
In the age of drought and megafires, Fairfax thinks beavers should be part of government agencies’ tools for managing fires. One rainy season is all it takes for reintroduced beavers to bring fire suppression and mitigation effects into their new home.
Can beavers make a dent on Arizona’s fire-prone landscape? Potentially, said Northern Arizona University community ecologist Stefan Sommer, especially along the riparian corridors where they den. But these strips make up just 0.5% of Arizona’s diverse landscapes. Moreover, 90% of the state’s surface waters have been wrangled into pipes and concrete canals, which are far from the ideal habitat of beavers.
But Sommer says beavers have the greatest promise for reducing flood risk in burn scars. Beaver dams and the riparian vegetation around them can act as sponges to hold back runoff after heavy rains.
Post-fire or no, other flood-frequent areas have already benefited from beavers. The Greenford Tube station in West London used to flood after every storm. But since beavers built a dam upstream three years ago, flooding no longer occurs.
Beavers’ dam-building bent isn’t broadly beloved. The industrious architects often plug up culverts, which can flood human infrastructure nearby.
As nature’s engineers, beavers bend rivers to their will, not unlike humans. For this reason, beavers are still considered nuisance animals. Beaver presence can interfere with the well-laid plans and long-term goals of human engineers who too want to work rivers to their own vision.
For all the benefits of bringing back beavers, reintroduction isn’t straightforward either. Beavers need to be moved with their entire family, as estranged individuals can die from depression.
The antics of beavers have garnered them fans — they’re known to be playful and prone to getting the zoomies. But their personalities need to be managed to prevent human habituation, Fairfax said. Beavers easily form bonds with humans, which complicates reintroduction success.
Ideally, work must be done in advance to make sure reintroduced beavers have all the resources they need to thrive. The process of planting willow and cottonwoods, the favorite snacks of beavers, can take years before denuded rivers become conducive enough for beavers to move in. Constructing analog dams helps beavers settle in, too, as it tricks them into thinking that other beavers have been there before.
Arizona’s translocation programs are geared toward removal from areas of human-animal conflict. According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, none of these projects and any future ones are specifically intended for fire mitigation, which the agency considers a secondary benefit.
“We do not utilize beavers … as our federal and state foresters have more effective tools in their toolbelt for management of the forested woodlands of Arizona,” wrote Shawn Lowery, the agency’s supervisor of habitat restoration and mitigation, in an email.
With the double whammy of wildfires and drought around the West, the movement to reinstate the beaver onto rivers is growing. In the southern Sierras in California, the Tule River Tribe has been leading the efforts of returning beavers to their reservation to help retain water. In Nevada and Utah, restored beavers have fashioned lush oases in the middle of the desert.
Beavers aren’t a silver bullet to the West’s fire and water woes, and it’s possible their vast impact of the landscape might not be enough to turn the tide against climate-change-fueled disasters, Sommer said.
Nevertheless, beaver reintroduction is pretty low-risk compared to the destructive scale of natural hazards that humans contend with.
“Let (beavers) do their thing, and if it works, great,” Fairfax said. “If it doesn’t, oh well, now you have biodiversity, carbon sequestration and all the other benefits.”
Back in Sedona, Rowe has been a long-time advocate for repopulating beavers in the watershed, though it still hasn’t translated into concrete action from government officials. Rowe hopes that the recent Pocket Fire will finally persuade land managers to reconsider, before the next wildfire arrives.
Shi En Kim covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to shien.kim@arizonarepublic.com.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram.
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