Arizona played without injured Jada Williams most of the second half, committed 23 turnovers and had bouts of bad shooting while Adia Barnes tried many combinations of players, but the Wildcats managed a 65-54 victory Sunday at UC San Diego.
Williams, who finished with four points on 1-of-7 shooting from the field with three turnovers, sat most of the second half because of an apparent knee injury that occurred after Williams and teammate Paulina Paris collided with 5:39 left in the third period.
She sat at the end of the bench with ice on the knee in the fourth quarter.
“She could have played; she wanted to play but I wanted to rest her,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said in the 1400-AM postgame show. “We have a long few weeks. Having her ready for next week is really important.”
Arizona (3-0) is slated to play six games in a 15-day span beginning with a matchup Tuesday at McKale Center at 6 p.m. against UNLV (2-0) that has former Sahuaro standout Alyssa Brown at forward.
Breya Cunningham was the only Arizona player to score in double figures with 16 points and she led the Wildcats with nine rebounds.
She made 7 of 11 shots from the field and also had three blocked shots and three steals.
Her teammates were a combined 17 of 46 (36.9 percent) from the field.
Barnes played 12 players, 10 of whom participated in double-digit minutes. Only three players reached 20 minutes, led by Paris’ 26.
Cunningham led the team in scoring despite playing only 19 minutes, not because of foul trouble this time, but because Barnes wanted to take advantage of an early-season game on the road to get all of her players experience.
“We’re playing a ton of youth, different combinations,” Barnes said. “I didn’t want to play anybody more than 20 minutes because this is a long week for us. We’ve got another big home game on Tuesday. I kind of wanted to evenly distribute (the minutes), so it made us have some combinations we wouldn’t typically have.”
Barnes added to that statement that utilizing many of her players is “no excuse at all.”
“I think UCSD did a great job of running the ball down our throats in transition,” Barnes said. “We had a tough time, and we had a tough time with some matchups.”
The Tritons (0-2) topped Arizona in fast-break points 15-14.
The Wildcats outshot UCSD in the second half, 52 percent to 41.4 percent, but each team scored 34 points.
Arizona had two more turnovers than the Tritons in the half and guard Parker Montgomery topped all scorers in the second half with nine points on 4-of-6 shooting. She finished with 14 points.
The Tritons, who trailed by as many as 27 points, also went on an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter and outscored the Wildcats 18-5 in the last 7:32.
“I thought we did a better job of taking care of the ball in the second half overall,” said Barnes, whose team had 12 turnovers by halftime. “But we just have to be better. Just easy passes, not forcing shots, taking higher percentage shots … and then our 3-point percentage would go up.
“I think we’ll have a better outing on Tuesday, because we’ll have some more solid rotations.”
Each team was 5 of 18 from beyond the arc.
Arizona gained separation with an 18-0 run between the first and second quarters to build a 29-12 lead with 7:17 left until halftime.
The Wildcats could not pull away further from there in the first half because of six turnovers and shooting 4 of 13 from in the second quarter.
UCSD outscored Arizona 8-2 in the last 5:15 of the half to cut the lead to 31-20 going into halftime.
Cunningham had 10 points and seven rebounds — and also committed only one foul — in the first half.
“She’s shooting at a really high percentage, converting on her shots, rebounding really well,” Barnes said. “Keeping the ball high (at the post), running the floor better. I think she’s just doing a really good job at a high level.”
Arizona was never seriously threatened despite the breakdowns late in the fourth quarter.
Building a 60-36 lead with 7:32 remaining was the key — it was too much of a deficit for UCSD to overcome.
Barnes said she was impressed by Serbian freshman forward Katarina Knezevic, who finished with six points and six rebounds. She and South Carolina transfer Sahnya Jah led the team with four turnovers.
But what matters most to Barnes at this juncture of the season is getting experience for all her players so she can settle on a defined rotation once Big 12 play starts in late December.
“(Knezevic) did a good defensively,” Barnes said. “She has to do a better job of staying down (defensively), but I thought she gave us some solid minutes. … I think everybody contributed, but I think some of the youth on the perimeter really showed in some of the sets.”
The Wildcats were buoyed by their inside play in the first half.
They dominated the paint, outscoring UCSD 16-8, but the Tritons kept pace in the second half. The Wildcats had 18 points and UCSD 16 in the second half.
At one point in the fourth quarter, Barnes played Jah, a sophomore, along with freshmen Knezevic, Mailien Rolf and Lauryn Swann and also Montaya Dew, a redshirt sophomore who has not played the last two seasons because of a mid-season enrollment from high school two years ago and a knee injury last year.
“Just having all the youth and newbies, it’s really hard to get to run stuff,” Barnes said. “I think that’s why you saw some turnovers and not being able to execute. It’s just completely different habits of our defense and our style.
“I think overall, we’re getting better every game, and that’s the important thing.”
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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