Isis Beh, Helena Pueyo lift Arizona women’s basketball to triple-OT win over Washington

The last time Arizona women’s basketball played three overtimes was the 2018-19 season. Aari McDonald was in her first year as a Wildcat. The team won the WNIT, but it couldn’t defeat UCLA that day.

Things were different on Sunday against Washington. Helena Pueyo played all 55 minutes—the most by a Pac-12 player in a single game since at least 1999-2000—and the Wildcats survived for a 90-82 victory over the Huskies.

“These last two games we came out playing some of our best basketball in the first like five, seven minutes,” said Arizona head coach Adia Barnes. “And then the second quarter happens. Now, it’s not the third quarter, it’s the second quarter if you notice. But just found ways to get stops and show up big and make plays. So, I’m just proud of us right now. I’m proud of our team.”

It was a tough ask for UW, too. The Huskies lost to ASU on Friday in double overtime.

Pueyo tied her career high with 22 points, but it was Isis Beh who did most of the offensive damage. The senior post exploded past her previous Division I career high of 13 points set last year at West Virginia. It was her second straight game in double figures after finishing with 11 against Washington State.

Beh had already passed that 13-point threshold long before the first extra period. She ended with 29 points on 10-for-11 shooting, including going 2 for 2 from the 3-point line and 7 for 10 from the free-throw line. Her field goal percentage of 90.9 percent tied the second-best mark in Arizona program history.

Beh also had five rebounds—four of those on the offensive end—and three assists.

“I feel like after Friday’s game, I just have more confidence,” Beh said. “And I’ve been talking to the coaches, and they’ve been giving me more confidence. All season, my teammates have built the confidence, but now like I’m starting to have confidence within myself.”

A big reason for Beh’s contributions was the ability to avoid fouls and stay on the floor, something that has been a challenge in her first season in the Pac-12.

“Someone’s driving past me, I’ll just let them have it and I trust my teammates will be a help instead of trying to get back in front myself,” Beh said. “So I feel like that’s what helped me. And I haven’t been trying to block shots because I’m not a leaper. So I’ve just stopped trying to block shots.”

Pueyo was close to a double-double, grabbing eight rebounds to go with her 22 points. She added four assists, two steals, and two blocks. She had just one turnover in her 55-minute effort.

The aggressiveness of the two veterans isn’t always part of their games. The lifting partners have been trying to help each other get over that.

“We always tell each other like, ‘You need to shoot,’” Beh said. “We tell each other all the time, like, ‘Stop passing the ball,’ because both of us try to pass too much. So we were trying to score the ball.”

The freshman trio of Jada Williams (11 points), Skylar Jones (10 points), and Breya Cunningham (10 points) also had double-digit efforts on the offensive end. Williams led the team with five assists and added four rebounds and two steals. Jones ended with three rebounds and four assists. Cunningham had seven rebounds, tying Esmery Martinez for second on the team.

Martinez sat out of Friday’s game against Washington State, and Barnes said that she probably should not have played against Washington. While she went 1 for 8 from the field and had five turnovers, Martinez grabbed three of her seven rebounds on the offensive end of the floor, had four assists, and stole the ball twice.

The Wildcats came out hot. They shot 47.1 percent from the floor and went 3 for 5 from the 3-point line in the opening quarter. They scored the first 14 points of the game, keeping UW off the board until the 3:32 mark.

The Huskies struggled even when they were open. They hit just 3 of 13 shots in the first 10 ten minutes. Even when Arizona didn’t close out on 3-point shooters, UW could not hit the shots, going 0 for 4 from outside.

The result was a 21-7 lead for Arizona after the first period. It didn’t last long, though.

UW found its way in the second quarter. Shots started falling to the turn of 10 for 12 in the period. Arizona was still hitting shots—connecting on 77.8 percent of its second-quarter shots—but wasn’t getting as many shots off as its opponent.

The Huskies outscored the Wildcats 24-17 in the second quarter to make it a 38-31 game going into the locker room.

“I feel like we started really aggressive and we kind of hit a point in the game [when] all of us was tired at the same time,” Beh said. “I felt like after halftime we talked about it and we were just, no matter how tired we are, we need to still do what we need to do.”

Washington kept that momentum going in the second half, while Arizona started to fall off a bit. The Huskies shot over 50 percent in both quarters after halftime. The Wildcats shot 30 percent or lower both quarters.

UW took its first lead of the game with just over a minute left in the third quarter. They held it for most of the remaining time in regulation. Arizona’s last lead in regulation came with 5:10 left on the clock.

The Wildcats kept the Huskies within reach. With 1:05 left in regulation and UW leading by two, Williams stepped to the free throw line and calmly sank two to tie the game at 60.

In Arizona’s loss to UW in Seattle, the game was tied with seconds on the clock. The Wildcats had three fouls to give, but they didn’t give them. Instead, they allowed the Huskies to go the length of the court and score the winning basket.

Barnes didn’t bring up that last defensive possession, but she did impress on her team that they had three fouls to give and they needed to give them.

“I didn’t bring it up because I don’t want them to think about that,” Barnes said. “I brought up this is an opportunity. This is the situation. I repeated myself like eight times. But this is a situation. This is how many fouls we have to give.”

This time, they had 14 seconds on the clock. They gave those three fouls, but they still almost had their hearts broken.

Lauren Schwartz, who scored the winning bucket at Hec Ed, dribbled towards the basket. She let the ball go. It went in, but was it in time?

The officials looked at the monitor and waved it off. It was going to overtime tied at 60.

“I felt it counted the first time, but then I was like, ‘I don’t know. It was hard to say,’” Pueyo said. “I think it was a tough call, but when they said no I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’”

UW led by as many as five in the first extra period, but Arizona kept reeling it back in. With seven seconds to go, Pueyo hit a 3-point shot to tie it at 69. The teams were on to a second overtime.

“That was crazy,” Pueyo said. “I mean, I don’t think it was even for me. I think we were looking for a two, but I got the ball back and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m just gonna shoot it.’”

Arizona took its first lead since halfway through the fourth quarter to start the scoring in the second OT. Neither team led by more than two points, with Arizona taking the final two-point lead on a bucket from Pueyo with 16 seconds to go. Schwartz countered on the other end with two made free throws to send it to the third extra period.

The final five minutes of overtime started with Schwartz putting the Huskies up by three, but Arizona controlled the period after that.

Beh responded with a layup. That was followed by her third 3-pointer of the season and second of the game, giving Arizona a lead that it never relinquished.

“This was a must-win game for us,” Barnes said.