Here are my three biggest takeaways from Arizona’s 73-54 win over UT Arlington in the Wildcats’ regular-season opener on Monday night at McKale Center:
Arizona’s bench contribution strong with deeper lineup
*The Wildcats went from seven scholarship players available most of last year to a roster of 14 for the 2024-2025 season, Adia Barnes’ ninth at her alma mater.
With Isis Beh, Jada Williams, Breya Cunningham, Skylar Jones and Montaya Dew (redshirted 2023-2024 season due to injury) returning, Barnes went to the transfer portal adding forwards Ajae Yoakum (Florida International graduate transfer), Sahnya Jah (South Carolina) and Joryn Ross (Pepperdine) as well as guard Paulina Paris (North Carolina).
Barnes also added freshman Lauryn Swann a four-star player out of Queens, N.Y., Katarina Knezevic from Serbia and Mailien Rolf from Germany to the team.
With depth comes an increase in bench points.
Swann, Jah, Rolf and Knezevic combined for 30 bench points in Arizona’s 73-54 win over UT Arlington.
“Being able to have a deeper bench and trust the people off the bench to score and everything,” Cunningham said. “We trust each other a lot, we share the ball a lot so just seeing that everybody, almost everybody scores and it doesn’t matter how we get the win I think that’s really good for us this year.
Free throws a big emphasis for Arizona this year.
“Every day at the end of practice, you don’t get to finish practice until you hit twelve in a row,” Beh said of Arizona’s focus on improving its free-throw shooting. “So if you don’t make twelve in a row you’re just going to still be shooting when every else is done so I mean we work on it every day.”
The Wildcats were perfect at the free throw line until the 5:54 mark in the fourth quarter ending at 86.4 percent, making 19 of 22.
Arizona was relatively good last year, making 74.8 percent of its free-throw attempts, but Barnes wants her team to cherish every point possible.
Points in the paint improving with more depth inside
With Arizona scoring 40 points in the paint against UT Arlington, the Wildcats showed the effort inside Barnes is looking for this season.
“Her (Beh) and Breya have really good chemistry together, and even also those two and Jah,” Barnes said. “So that’s good to see we haven’t had that combination so I think we are pretty strong inside. Not super athletic but more girth and I think we will be effective in the Big12 like that.”
Arizona next faces Tarleton State in McKale Center on Thursday night at 6.
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