What a difference five days — and a change in the starting lineup — made for Arizona.
Arizona coach Adia Barnes, whose team suffered its worst loss of the season Tuesday at home against Utah, did not start Skylar Jones and Paulina Paris at UCF on Saturday.
That allowed Lauryn Swann, the lone productive performer against the Utes, to start for the first time in her young career along with fellow freshman Mailien Rolf.
With Arizona scoring the first 10 points of the game against UCF — including a 3-pointer by Swann to supplement the scoring of Breya Cunningham — the move worked for Barnes.
The Wildcats (11-5, 2-1 Big 12) used that hot start and the motivated Jones off the bench to rout UCF 75-53 on Saturday at Orlando, Fla.
“Lauryn works really hard in practice and Mailien gives constant effort every day and does all the little things,” Barnes said during the 1400-AM postgame radio show. “I think it was a good change. I think Sky and Paulina handled it well. They did really good off the bench.
“Sometimes you need to do that (alter the starting lineup) to change the look of things.”
Jones, who has persevered through foot pain this season, scored the last three points of Arizona’s 10-0 run to start the second quarter, giving the Wildcats a 28-10 lead with 8:02 left until halftime.
Jones’ 10 points in the second quarter gave her a team-best 12 at halftime, when Arizona built a 43-19 lead.
She finished with 17 points while making all of her shots from the field (5 of 5, 2 of 2 from 3-point range) and the free-throw line (5 of 5).
“I think sometimes different looks creates motivation,” Barnes said, factoring Jones’ performance. “She’s just really motivated. Sometimes when you shake things up, it creates motivation, which is a good thing.”
Arizona shot 51.9 percent from the field in the first half and recorded 11 assists on its 14 made field goals.
Swann made both of her 3-point attempts by halftime, leading Arizona’s 5-of-9 performance from beyond the arc.
Arizona played in stark contrast to its performance in the 69-48 loss to Utah on Tuesday at McKale Center. Swann scored 22 of the points in that game on 8-of-11 shooting from the field, including 6 of 7 from 3-point range.
Arizona women at the start of each quarter vs. UCF:
1Q: 10-0 (7 points from Cunninghman)
2Q: 10-0 (3 points each from Williams and Jones), 28-10 lead
3Q: 4-0 (all by Cunningham), 47-19 lead
4Q: 6-0 (Williams two 3-pointers), 60-35 lead— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) January 4, 2025
The Wildcats forced Utah into 21 turnovers in that game but scored only 11 points off them because of their cold shooting (34.5 percent).
“We wanted to come here, play confident, play strong, especially coming off our last game,” Cunningham said to ESPN+ after the game. “That was a goal for the whole team, to play stronger.”
Cunningham was saddled in foul trouble throughout against the Utes after drawing two fouls early. She had only two points (1 of 6 shooting from the field) with two rebounds in only 14 minutes before fouling out.
Against UCF, Cunningham scored nine of Arizona’s first 12 points.
She picked up two fouls in the first quarter, the second coming with only 19.6 seconds left in the quarter. But foul trouble did not plague her this time.
Cunningham finished with 15 points and five rebounds, a solid performance other than her 1-of-6 shooting from the free-throw line.
“I just think as a team, we played better,” Cunningham said.
Arizona finished shooting 51 percent from the field, 47.4 percent from 3-point range.
The Wildcats had 19 assists on their 25 made field goals.
UCF (7-6, 0-3) got no closer than 17 points in the second half.
The Knights’ top player, Kaitlin Peterson, played through foul trouble most of the game. She finished with a team-high 17 points on 4-of-17 shooting from the field.
Jada Williams contributed 15 points with four assists and only one turnover in 34 minutes for Arizona.
Arizona next has two Big 12 heavyweights visiting McKale Center — Baylor on Wednesday (6 p.m.) and Iowa State and All-American center Audi Crooks on Saturday (2 p.m.).
“This game was really important,” Barnes said. “First of all, it’s hard to win games on the road. We played really bad at home against Utah. We usually take care of things at home.
“Now going back home, we need to try to win home games. We only have eight more home games for the year. … Now trying to take care of Baylor, it’s a tough week. We’re in Florida, we have to go back and play Wednesday and then Saturday against two really good teams. We need to play well. I think we’re on the right track.”
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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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