Having a dominant frontcourt was the difference for the Arizona Wildcats on Sunday afternoon. The team leaned on sophomore forward Breya Cunningham in a 65-54 defeat of UC San Diego.

“I think she’s playing a lot smarter,” said Arizona head coach Adia Barnes. “I think today you saw a lot of times in our press, the alleviator would be the five if she gets it and kind of flashes the ball. She had some deflections off of that. She had a steal and went coast to coast. She would never have been able to do that a year ago, and she’s not even the game shape she needs to be. So I think she’s just getting better. She’s improved. She now has a year under her belt. She’s more experienced, she knows what not to do, and she’s just becoming a really good player.”

It’s not that the Tritons don’t have size. Six-foot-two forward Kayana Spriggs had a strong outing for UCSD. She ended with 11 points, eight rebounds, three blocks, and two steals in 34 minutes of play. Arizona just has more of it.

Cunningham led the team with 16 points and nine rebounds while playing 19 minutes. She also had an assist, three blocks, and three steals. While several of her teammates got into foul trouble, she was whistled just twice and had only one turnover.

In the early going, Arizona also took advantage of the size of Isis Beh. Beh scored nine points and grabbed three rebounds in 17 minutes on the court. Sophomore Sahnya Jah also had some bright spots with six points, three rebounds, two assists, and one steal in 20 minutes. The down sides for the transfer forward were her four turnovers and three fouls.

“Jah gave us really good energy off the bench,” Barnes said. “Came in, played hard. Got in foul trouble and had to sit. But I think all of their chemistry—I think Isis and Breya, I think Jah and Breya, I think even working (Jorynn Ross) in…But they’re still young, too. So if you look at Isis, she’s our most experienced post player, but the rest of them, I mean, they’re sophomores. So I think the future is bright, and they’re all improving, and now we just got to figure out a way to get our turnovers down…and get to make some outside shots so everybody doesn’t zone us the whole year.”

Arizona pushed the lead to 54-31 after three quarters and led by as many as 27 points during the game but did not have a great fourth quarter. Starting point guard Jada Williams went out with a knee injury after a collision with Paulina Paris under the Wildcats’ bucket halfway through the third quarter.

Williams was seen on the bike in the tunnel with Barnes shortly after the collision but returned to the bench with ice on her knee. The sophomore point guard played 19 minutes with four points, two rebounds, two assists, and four steals.

“She could have played,” Barnes said. “She was available to play, but she kind of landed on her kneecap, and so I just didn’t want to have to play her.”

Barnes ran mostly reserves for a large chunk of the final frame. She put Cunningham back in late in the game when the score got a bit too close for comfort, but it gave her a lot of time to play her newcomers and freshmen.

“At the four minutes left in the game, we were up by…almost 30, but we went deep into the bench,” Barnes said. “Had a lot of youth out there a lot of times. So I don’t like our turnovers. Our assists to turnovers, our ratio, I don’t love, but I think a lot of it’s kind of getting comfortable with the offense, getting used to each other, and just a lot of young mistakes.”

The end result was the Tritons outscoring the Wildcats 23-11 in the fourth. Seven of UCSD’s 23 points in the final quarter came on the back of 7-for-9 shooting from the charity stripe. Arizona went 1 for 2 over the final 10 minutes.

The game was a closely-called affair. Both teams were called for multiple fouls far away from the bucket with touch fouls near halfcourt a regular occurrence. That was especially the case in the first half.

“When there’s a lot of touch fouls like that, we say, start to drive the ball,” Barnes said. “Because when they’re calling a lot of touch fouls and easy touches, then that’s the way the game is being called. So we as players have to adjust, and then you start to be really aggressive off the dribble. And I think we started to do that. We missed some shots early. I thought we came out of the gate really flat, but I felt like the second five minutes of the first quarter, we kind of started to pick it up defensively and got some easy shots on offense.”

The game ended with Arizona shooting 17 free throws and UCSD going to the line 20 times. Sixteen of the 37 free throws came in the first quarter alone with each club shooting eight in the first 10 minutes.

Skylar Jones ended with four fouls in 20 minutes. Jah had three in 20 minutes. Mailien Rolf picked up three in 18 minutes and fellow freshman Katarina Knežević had three in 17 minutes on the court.

Arizona (3-0, 0-0 Big 12) returns home for its toughest game yet when UNLV comes to town on Tuesday, Nov. 12. The Rebels defeated the Wildcats 72-53 last year in Las Vegas. They are 2-0 with wins over Loyola Marymount and NAU so far this season. It will be UNLV’s first true road game.

Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics