The Arizona Wildcats defeated the Cal State Monterey Bay Otters 92-54 on Tuesday night in McKale Center at ALKEME Arena in the second and final game of exhibition.
The Wildcats start regular season play on November 3 in the Las Vegas facing former Pac-12 foe Standford.
Although the Wildcats won the game, Arizona coach Becky Burke wasn’t satisfied with how her team executed on either side of the ball especially with the Standford game coming up on Monday.
“We’re not loving the film that we are seeing in these last two games, there’s not a whole lot I’m excited to come up here and talk about with this game.” Burke said.
“We didn’t really execute well today, we didn’t defend well, we weren’t physical. It’s not hey did we get the rebound, it’s did we box out in order to get it, and we were just out jumping people today because we were superior athletes and that’s not going to work on Monday.”
Aliyahna “Puff” Morris added, “Like coach said, in the future we won’t be able to get away with someone hitting us and we’re trying to hit back. We need to come out more aggressive.”
After a slow start and some unfortunate missed opportunities, Arizona started to get their offensive footing, going on a 9-2 run with a little over three minutes remaining to lead Cal State Monterey Bay 18-11 at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Arizona shot 61.5% from the floor outscoring Cal State MB 21-17 to take a 39-28 lead into the locker room.
Coming out of halftime, the Wildcats made adjustments on both ends of the court, going on a 16-3 run to extend their lead over the Otter’s to 67-38 at the end of the third quarter.
“When a team is arguably playing harder than you in your house that’s never a good feeling we thought that was the case at times in the first half so really just telling them to get their stuff together get out there and show Arizona effort for twenty more minutes and I think they came out in the third quarter and they definitely sent a message, they definitely bounced back, they responded well from our halftime chat.”
Between the third and fourth quarter a technical was called on Burke stemming from a play that happened in the third quarter when Arizona guard Dionna Gray’s pump fake had a Cal State MB player skying over Gray. Burke felt that Gray was kicked in the head during the play.
“We pump fake, a kid goes flying in the air, we get like kicked in the head, the ref says he didn’t see it, whatever.” Burke said, “so the next media I just pulled it up, and I just want to show her. She didn’t want me to show her. I was very calm, and I was in the coach’s box, so I guess the rules say that you get a technical if you have an iPad out.”
The Wildcats put up 25 points in the fourth quarter while holding the Otters to 16 points.
Arizona had 25 points off of turnovers, 66 points in the paint, 25 fast break points and the bench added 35 of the Wildcats’ 92 points.
“I think the more we play with each other the more we’ll know like what’s the best for our execution.” Makayla Presser-Palmer said. ” I think just as we keep continuing on, our connection is just going to get better and better.”
Team Leaders:
Morris ended the game with 15 points, two steals and one assist in 22 minutes played.
Sumayah Sugapong saw the floor for 24 minutes and had 13 points, six steals and six assists.
Jasleen Green had 12 points, one steal and one assist in 28 minutes of play.
Presser-Palmer played 28 minutes and had 12 points, three steals and one assist.
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