Arizona women’s basketball opened the Becky Burke era with a 60-57 exhibition loss Thursday to West Texas A&M.
“Obviously, not the result that we wanted or that we’re proud of or that is acceptable to us.” Burke said
“We’re gonna take every lesson from this game, apply it to practice this next week, hopefully have a wakeup call for every single person on our team, which from what I just saw in the locker room I know will be the case and move forward and be better forward.”
When Adia Barnes left the Arizona program for Southern Methodist University, so did all but one player, Montaya Dew.
Faced with a complete rebuild, Burke hit the transfer portal hard and between transfer players and new commitments Burke built her team.
As happens when you build a program, the first game of the season, even when it is an exhibition game, looks and feels a little chaotic.
New players, new coaches and new staff all trying to learn how to function as a unit takes time.
That is why exhibition games are played.
The starting line-up for game one of the 2025-2026 season:
- Graduate transfer from Glenville State – Guard, Mickayla (Micky) Perdue
- UC San Diego transfer – Junior guard, Sumayah Sugapong
- University of Buffalo graduate transfer – Guard, Noelani (Lani) Cornfield
- Memphis transfer – Red shirt junior guard, Tanyuel (T) Welch
- Texas Tech transfer – Junior center, Achol Magot
Magot is a Tucson native who played at Salpointe before playing for the Tucson Volunteers, a local prep team.
Taking the floor for the first time in a competitive environment made for a shaky first quarter for Arizona The Wildcats found themselves trailing West Texas A&M 20-11.
At the half, Arizona trailed West Texas A&M 33-21.
Sugapong hit double digits with ten-points and Cornfield ended the half with six-points.
The Buffaloes had 12 second chance point, while Arizona had zero. West Texas A&M also had 13 bench points to Arizona’s two.
“I think there’s a lot of fans here tonight, I think some kids got in the game that have never seen this many people before whether it was true freshman, or transfers, or international kids It’s just some nerves probably a little bit some wanting so badly to please everybody in this building so I think a lot of those things especially in the first half when we just kind of couldn’t get the ball in the hole.”Burke said about her team having some jitters in the first half.
In the third quarter Arizona put together a nice run to cut the Buffaloes lead down to 10-points but it didn’t last long as the Buffaloes extended the lead to as much as 18-points.
At the end of the third quarter West Texas A&M held a 54-37 lead.
With over six minutes left in the fourth quarter, Arizona put another run together to cut the Buffaloes lead down to 10-points once again.
As the saying goes ” defense leads to offense”. Arizona proved that true as the Wildcats used the press to create turnovers providing scoring opportunities that chipped away at the West Texas A&M lead, ultimately getting the lead down to three points with under a minute to go.
“I think that’s the lineups. When we went on those two runs it was the same lineup and that’s a good thing for us to find out in a game like this and figure out what we need to play that lineup a little bit more in the next game because they are effective in a certain way. So, I think those runs were lineups but I also think those runs were the defensive end when we were getting stops.” Burke said
The Buffaloes missed their next shot and with 30.6 seconds left in the game Arizona grabbed the rebound.
Play was stopped and a shot clock malfunction was called giving the ball back to the Buffaloes with 10 seconds left on the shot clock.
The Arizona coaching staff was not happy with the call and the crowd erupted in boos as the call was announced in McKale.
With 4.4 seconds left in the game, Perdue had a clear shot and put up a three but the ball rimmed out.
Purdue got a second chance to tie the game at the buzzer with a three from the right side of the arc. The comeback wasn’t meant to be as the ball bounced off the rim ending the game.
Freshman forward Daniah Trammell had a solid game for Arizona.
Trammell had eight-points, three rebounds and two steals.
“I think that Daniah was a really, really bright spot for us today,” Burke said on her freshman.
Cornfield ended the game with a team high 14-points shooting five-of-seven from the floor, hit all four of her free throws as well as four assists and four steals.
“This is our first forty minutes of basketball together. We are going to take it and the next forty will be better and the next forty will be better and the next forty. There’s a reason you play these, there’s a reason you have a non-conference,” Burke said.
“We needed to get punched in the face, and that’s what happened. You don’t get to win because you have Arizona across your chest. You win because you earn it”.
The Wildcats will have another chance to “earn it” as they host Cal State LA on Thursday, October 30 at 6:00 p.m. for their second exhibition game.
Recommended for you
