Arizona women’s basketball uses inside superiority to dominate CSU Bakersfield

Whatever difficulties the Arizona Wildcats have had early in the season, coming into a game against 0-8 Cal State Bakersfield didn’t seem like much of a challenge. It wasn’t. The Wildcats used their size to dominate both early and late on the way to a 76-39 victory.

“Was disappointed after the GCU game, just in how we kind of led and at the end, let it slip away,” Barnes said. “I hope that you saw we got better today. Obviously, it’s hard to gauge against different opponents, against a zone, but we weren’t so stagnant against the zone. So we really took pride in working on some different situations and understanding where to get shots from, how to get shots against man or zone, and I thought we did a better job executing and sharing the ball. Hope it looked like that today. And moved the ball better. We didn’t hold it a lot. We still did it sometimes, but baby steps.”

Both Breya Cunningham and Isis Beh hit their first three shots. Cunningham had 13 points, five rebounds, two assists, one block, and one steal in 18 minutes of play. Beh contributed eight points on 4-for-4 shooting, two rebounds, one assist, and three steals in 11 minutes on the court.

“She brought really good energy,” Barnes said of Beh. “And what I love is that she looked to score. She’s such an unselfish player. But we are better when she gets the ball and she’s a threat. We aren’t good when she doesn’t look at the basket.”

Beh was returning after missing two games while in concussion protocol, although she came off the bench rather than her usual starting position. Sahnya Jah also returned after missing the GCU loss for undisclosed reasons.

Skylar Jones tied Cunningham for the game high with 13 points in 23 minutes. She went 4 for 4 in the first half, including hitting both of her 3-point shots. Jones ended the game shooting 5 for 6 from the floor. She dished out three assists but had four of the Wildcats’ turnovers. She also had one steal.

Most important for Jones was that she played more fundamentally sound. It’s something that she has been working on in practice.

“I think that’s why I shot five for six today, because I shot on balance and I shot the open shots and didn’t force anything,” Jones said. “I don’t think I had a charge today. I didn’t have charge today! That’s the first time in like, four games! Those charges have make me a little bit more hesitant with driving to the basket. So I think I need to just play basketball and stop overthinking it and go off two feet, because that’s making my percentage go up, and it’s more accurate when I shoot off two feet and not out of control. Coach, don’t nod your head.”

With the game well in hand, Barnes was able to get plenty of playing time for her young players. Katarina Knežević took full advantage. She had the best game of her young career with nine points, five rebounds, three assists, and three steals in 25 minutes.

As a team, the Wildcats took care of the ball better than they have all season. They had just 10 turnovers, three less than their previous season low against California. Four of the five starters did not turn the ball over at all. With 18 assists, it was the first time the team had a positive assist-to-turnover ratio this season.

“A lot of our turnovers come from the guards trying to get the ball inside or passing too fast off of one foot, not having balance, things like that,” Cunningham said. “Once we were focused in, conscious of how we were passing, we were slowed down. That was one of our goals before the game, was to have a positive assist (to turnover).”

They also had a season-low nine personal fouls. The most whistles came on Cunningham, but she only had two fouls.

“We need to learn that a lot of us need to be on the floor so we can’t pick up early fouls and stupid reaching fouls or fouling with our hands down, things like that,” Jones said. “So I think that was the main focus of us is moving our feet more and more communication, which was seen today, which was good. Which is probably why we had a few less turnovers. Not me, though, I have four, but as a team, we did have less turnovers. We only had like 10.”

Barnes was happy about the decrease in fouls, although she admitted that some of that was likely due to the opposition’s ability to put pressure on Arizona’s defenders.

“I think we’re getting a little bit more disciplined,” Barnes said. “I think some of it was not being really aggressive, us being a little bit passive, like not as much pressure on the ball, which I recognize that. And then just the talent offensively. I think it’s a lot harder to contain when you guard really freak athletes. So I think there’s a combination of both of those things. But the thing is, in the past, you would have seen us slapping down. So we’re working on that. But these are things that we’re working on daily. We are working on playing without fouling.”

Arizona held CSUB below 10 points in three of four quarters. The Roadrunners scored nine in the first quarter, six in the third, and eight in the fourth. The shot 29.2 percent from the floor and hit 6 of 21 shots from beyond the arc.

Things got ragged on the offensive end for the Wildcats at several points, especially when they had a lot of newcomers on the floor at the same time. After shooting 56.7 percent from the floor in the first half, they dropped to 34.3 percent in the second half. However, they also shut down the Roadrunners on the defensive end.