(Tucson, AZ) The Wildcat women began their 2019-20 season coming off an WNIT Championship but looking for more. The goal is to make the NCAA Tournament this season.
The first test was against North Dakota Fighting Hawks.
The. Cats scratched their way to a 17-10 lead in the first quarter with Aari McDonald and Dominique McBryde leading the way with five points each.
Jaclyn Jarnot led the NDU with eight points. The Hawks out rebounded the Wildcats 10-8.
Arzona shot the three ball nine times marking three. The big stat was the nine points off turnovers the Cats scored.
Zona came out the second quarter on a 8-3 run to extend the lead to 25-13 at the 4;31 mark.
With three minutes left in the half, Coach Adia Barnes turned the dogs loose and began to press full court. That paid immediate dividends with four quick points off turnovers. Along with Samaj Smith and Cate Reese the Cats offense came alive and ran the score to 33-15.
Shell shocked NDU scored but two points off free throws the remainder of the way.
At the half Arizona enjoyed a 35-17 lead. The Cats shot 16-35 for 46%. Zona’s defense held NDU to 26% shooting making just six field goals.
Cate Reese started the Cats off in the third quarter with a strong move down low and the lead was at twenty 37-17.
The run continued until 7:10 when Melissa Leet hit a three pointer to get the Hawks on the board at 43-20.
Helena Pueyo jacked up a three to extend the Cats lead to 48-26. Fighting Hawks turnovers also the big reason for the large lead.
Arizona’s defense was improved from last season when the Cats didn’t have the luxury of a deep bench as they do this year and tired legs were commonplace.
At the end of three quarters Arizona’s led 53-26. The lone negative stat for the Wildcats was they were only 5-20 from beyond the arc.
Sam Thomas hit a three to start the scoring in the final quarter and another one less than a minute later, 61-32.
Arizona’s ball movement is also much improved not needing McDonald to create most of the offense this year.
Turnovers continued to plague NDU in the fourth quarter as their fatigue showed in chasing the Cats all over the court.
The Cats win going away 74-42 over an outmatched North Dakota University team that should take away several lessons from this game that will help them down the line.
Once again, Arizona used a lot of players, some combinations worked, others didn’t.
Arizona needs to play much better defense than they did tonight according to the coaching staff.
The season is young and and the Cats are too, but even in a blowout win, many lessons can and will be learned.
Barnes is still experimenting with different lineups. Friday the Cats will face Santa Clara at McKale.
Attendance was 3,450 which set a record for an opening game crowd.
