Inside the Boxscore: Arizona continues to be plagued by turnovers in loss to Vanderbilt

Arizona was doomed by turnovers again when it lost 71-60 to Vanderbilt to open its two days in the Acrisure Holiday Invitational at Palm Springs, Calif., on Tuesday.

The Wildcats (6-2) next play Wednesday against former Pac-12 rival California (6-1) in the consolation game of the invitational at noon, Tucson time. The Golden Bears lost 78-72 to Michigan State on Tuesday.

Here are some numbers that stick out from Tuesday’s loss to Vanderbilt

ARIZONA TURNOVERS A SERIOUS CONCERN

The season-long problem of turnovers again plagued Arizona in the loss to Vanderbilt as the Wildcats tallied 26 turnovers, more than double its amount of assists (12).

The turnovers led to 29 points for Vanderbilt — about 41 percent of the points scored by the Commodores.

“I think a learning lesson for us as a young team is you gotta attack things and attack smart,” Barnes was quoted as saying by AZDesertSwarm.com. “When we’re tired, we should attack better and play harder and get more 50-50 balls. That’s how we have to start the game.”

Arizona trailed 31-18 at halftime after its 14 turnovers allowed Vanderbilt to outscore the Wildcats 18-1 in points-off-turnovers.

Arizona is averaging 20.9 turnovers while producing 12.6 assists per game.

The 20.9 average is by far the worst of the Adia Barnes era. The highest mark for the entire year was Barnes’ first season in 2016-17 when the Wildcats averaged 17.4 turnovers a game.

Coincidentally, Arizona’s lowest average of 11.5 turnovers a game under Barnes occurred when the Wildcats advanced to the national championship game in 2020-21.

Arizona ranked 266th nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio entering the game against Vanderbilt.

Its average turnovers and assists in Barnes’ tenure since 2016-17:

ARIZONA’S CORE OF STARTERS CARRYING A BIG LOAD OFFENSIVELY

Jada Williams, Skylar Jones, Paulina Paris and Breya Cunningham took about 76 percent of Arizona’s shots from the field in the loss to Vanderbilt. Williams was 6 of 13, Cunningham was 8 of 13, Paris finished 4 of 10 and Jones was 3 of 9.

That means the other five players — including starting post player Isis Beh — who played against Vanderbilt accounted for only 24 percent of the attempts.

Williams, Jones, Paris and Cunningham were 21 of 45 from the field. Their teammates were 4 of 13.

As the season goes on, Arizona will look for others to shoot more and lessen the load on the starters, especially if the starters get in foul trouble (which they are prone to do at the post).

Sahnya Jah had a promising game making 3 of 6 shots from the field for six points.

Lauryn Swann, nursing a sore shoulder, shot only three times from the field and missed them all, including two from 3-point range.

Promising German freshman Mailien Rolf played only a minute and committed two turnovers.

ARIZONAN PIERRE CONTROLLED THE GAME FOR VANDY

Vanderbilt’s Khamil Pierre, a graduate of Queen Creek Perry High School, had 25 points, 15 rebounds and a career-high seven steals against Arizona.

Pierre registered her sixth double-double of the year — tied for the most in NCAA Division I this season with LSU’s Aneesha Morrow.

The Phoenix native matched her career-best performance in rebounds.

Her performance helped offset an Arizona rally that trimmed a 20-point deficit to two points.

Vanderbilt struggled with turnovers as well with 23.

“I’m really proud of the resilience we showed today,” Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph said on the school’s Web site. “I felt like there were times when we were playing well, then other times we looked like we were about to fall apart.

“Obviously, it was a very physical game; there were almost 50 turnovers between the two teams. It’s not very pretty, but at the end of the day, pretty game or not, I want us to be resilient enough to win.”