In their last game, the Arizona Wildcats’ starters played 186 of the 200 minutes. All five played hard and showed what they can do when they give it their all. If they can reproduce this on a regular basis, they have a chance to surprise some teams.
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Lose your leading scorer Mickey Perdue The indefinite extension casts doubt on this. The visiting UCF Knights delivered a surprise or two with a 58-55 win over Arizona on Saturday.
“Really disappointed with this,” Arizona coach Becky Burke explain. “Very, very, very disappointed. Probably as disappointed as I am sitting in front of you. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a game where we forced 23 turnovers, took 19 more shots than they did, and didn’t win a basketball game. There’s a lot of reasons for that. We need to look in the mirror. We need to own it. Credit to UCF. Obviously they beat us and we did some soul-searching. Do.”
The Cavaliers focused on the frontcourt game. Although Arizona won the offensive rebound battle 12-8, they outrebounded the Wildcats 39-30 and won second-chance points 14-11. 38 of their 58 points were scored in the paint. They also went to the free throw line 22 times, although they only made 14 free throws. They only took three shots from beyond the three-point line and missed all of them.
“We focus on rebounding and size before practice,” UCF head coach Sitya Messer explain. “We told our guys, we felt like we had a chance to win this game, we had to get inside. So that was a focus, on rebounding and offense. Inside.”
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Burke believes Arizona is better equipped to handle this challenge.
“They’re not that much bigger than us inside,” she said. “We’ve got to get tougher. I’ve always said that. They might have had a few inches. This isn’t it. audi liar under. We have to look in the mirror and identify some of us and some of the tendencies that exist within us as a group. What did the other team see on film and turn against you? You need to take this personally. We need to be tougher in the low post. We need to be tougher on plate 0. This is something we can control, which is the most frustrating part. I’m not asking anyone on our team to grow and get to 6-5, 6-6. I’m not asking them to do this. I asked them to stop the opponent with just one shot because we were already out. No one is allowed to hit us high and low six times in a row. From a resiliency standpoint, there are some things we need to fix and clean up that I haven’t had to deal with before. “
Perdue injured his wrist in practice. It’s hoped she’ll return before the end of the season, but that’s still uncertain. She leads the Wildcats in scoring and ranks eighth in the Big 12 with 17.1 points per game, but Burke felt those shortcomings were issues throughout the season.
“We took more 3-pointers tonight than Mitch did when he was on the court,” Burke said. “We shot 1-for-17 from the field. In any situation, no matter what, as a Division I basketball team, being 1-for-17 from beyond the arc is acceptable. That’s not the case. So, yeah, is Mitch going to do a couple more of those for us? Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely a factor in us losing our leading scorer, a big, big, big, big, big Things? Yeah, but when I see some of the fundamental issues that are issues for us, even the issues with Mickey acting like I’m not an excuse-type head coach, and I never will be, so, we need to look in the mirror and we need to know that’s the reality for us going forward until further notice and we need to live up to our commitment as coaches and as players.”
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The hole in the offense left by Perdue’s absence was evident from the start. Arizona shot just 26.5 percent from the field in the first half and went 1-for-13 from beyond the arc. After scoring 22 points in the first quarter against BYU, the Wildcats scored 22 points in the half against UCF.
Burke tried different personnel. she put Camryn’s Kitchen Start the second quarter. She was benched when Kitchin went 0 for 2 and made some defensive mistakes. Molly Ladwig. Ladwig also started 0 for 2.
Arizona has to keep its defense going because of the offensive issues they have. It has had varying degrees of success in doing so.
The Wildcats forced 14 turnovers in the first half and scored 11 points off of those turnovers. UCF is averaging 17.9 points per game, so the Cavaliers are trying to beat that average. Ultimately, they did so with 23 turnovers. Fifteen of those turnovers came on Arizona’s snaps. The Wildcats cut the deficit to 21 points.
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The Wildcats struggled with foul trouble. Sumaya Sujapong Has struggled much of the season, averaging 3.1 fouls per game and 5.7 fouls per 40 minutes. She scored her fourth point in the third quarter, but Burke elected to keep her on the court. Considering she was Arizona’s leading scorer at the time, she had no choice.
Sugabon scored six points in the third inning after going scoreless in the first half. She finished the game with 10 points, 4 rebounds and 1 assist, but fouled out with 3:32 left in the game.
“I’m trying to accept everything that’s coming, but I definitely think I need to work on starting early and being consistent throughout the race and not just like sprinting, especially with Mitch gone,” Sugabon said. “It’s not just me, it’s several of us who have to step up and make amends for this.”
With Sugapong no longer available, Ladwig took a chance at the last minute. The freshman returned to the court with just over 3.5 minutes left in the game, putting the 2-0 start out of her mind. She scored eight straight points for Arizona, which eventually cut the lead to three with 36.6 seconds left. The Wildcats didn’t get any closer.
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“Molly is a coach’s dream,” Burke said. “Molly is locked in every day. She’s going to do exactly what you ask her to do, the way you ask her to do it. She’s going to go all out, get down on the floor, physically attack people, sacrifice her body. She’s an elite teammate. Molly is someone you want in the locker room to make plans, and that’s why she’s here. She’s there for the rest of the game. She’s earned many, many, many opportunities because of how she performs when her number is locked up. But it depends on her character and her brand, and unfortunately, Molly’s foot speed isn’t where it needs to be and her athleticism isn’t going to be there if she continues to work on it, so she knows some of her shortcomings and that’s why she doesn’t get more opportunities.”
Ladwig held Arizona within four points multiple times before cutting the lead to the final margin. Every time she hit a short jumper or layup, the Wildcats tried to apply pressure. Typically, the Cavaliers break it down and find Keira Ngodu Get open for a layup at the basket.
Burke wasn’t entirely disappointed with the media, though. The lack of depth will have an impact, especially in terms of turnovers on players the team relies on.
“Unfortunately, those people have probably been playing for about 35 minutes by then, so you can’t really have them flying around in there,” she said. “They’re a little low on gas.”
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Arizona’s scoring leaders in Perdue’s absence are Sugapong and Nora Francoiseach person gets 10 points. Francois had 10 rebounds for her first double-double as a Wildcat. She contributed 1 assist and 1 steal.
Ladwig and Lani Kornfield Both sides scored eight points each, approaching double digits. All of Ladwig’s points came in the final 3 minutes and 33 seconds of the game. Kornfield had seven assists, seven steals and two rebounds but only turned the ball over twice. Ladwig also added 1 rebound, 2 assists and 1 steal while scoring.
The win was a huge boost for UCF, which not only won the only game between the two teams but also picked up a road win after losing to ASU earlier in the week.
“We told our guys we had an opportunity to try one-on-one,” Messer said. Advertisement
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For Arizona, despite a shortened roster, it’s hugely disappointing to give up a game that was projected to be their favorite. Now, they turn their attention to a series of ranked opponents in the coming weeks, starting with TCU next Saturday.
“They’re all strong,” Burke. “UCF is tough. We’re not a team that’s not going to have any games that aren’t tough for us. So we can look at it as David Goliath, or we can come to practice on Monday and try to get better, try to change some of our style and try to fully embrace the fact that we need to do the things that brought us success and continue to perform at a high level. Two steps forward, five steps back, forward. A few steps forward, a few steps down, it’s frustrating and that’s where we’ve been getting better with this team and I think we’ve been very, very stubborn and at this point we’re not going to lose to TCU and we’re going to do our best and we’re going to have a great game plan and, you know, we’re going to control the outcome of these games, but it really hurts and that’s what we think we can and should have.”
notes
Incoming freshmen Carly Hindle He was on the bench for Saturday’s game. The center is an early enrollee in Arizona. She will practice with the Wildcats, but Burke has no plans to play her this season.
