(Tucson, AZ) Today’s game had the Southern California Trojans in town after a grueling three overtime loss to ASU on Friday night.
On the other side, the #16 Arizona Wildcats came in flying high after their beatdown of the #8 UCLA Bruins 92-66.
Arizona was tied for fourth along with ASU currently with 6-3 PAC-12 records.
USC was tied for sixth with WSU at 3-6 conference records. The Trojans have only beaten one ranked team, that being their crosstown rival Bruins in double overtime back on January 17th.
Arizona wanted to keep the momentum going as they face a brutal road trip next week against the Oregon school, both ranked in the Top Ten.
The Cats once again had a good start as they did on Friday night, going up 11-6 at the first media timeout.
USC had only an inside presence early and no perimeter points and found themselves down 18-8 at the end of one quarter.
Arzona held the Trojans to just 27% shooting on just 4-15 from the field and without a three point basket in five attempts.
The Wildcats have gotten much better in the rebounding department up 15-11 on the glass with five offensive boards.
Both teams seemed a step slow after big games on Friday. Each teams was shooting in the high twenty percent range.
Desiree Caldwell picked up her third foul guarding Aari McDonald with 7:50 to go till the half. McDonald is a handful for anyone in the nation to guard.
It was all Zona in the first half as Amari Carter,0Cate Reese and McDonald led the way with fifteen points and a 24-13 lead at the final media timeout of the second quarter.
USC chipped away and came within three at 28-25 with just over s minute remaining.
Sam Thomas hit a big three pointer just before halftime to send the Cats into the locker room of 31-25.
Even though Arizona led 22-18 in rebounds, Coach Barnes was not pleased.
The U of A led all but twelve seconds on the first half after the opening basket by the Trojans.
Alissa Pili led the ladies of Troy with ten points and made her presence know inside.
Reese led the Wildcats with eight points on 4-7 shooting and nine rebounds. The surprising stat was that McDonald with six points was 0-6 from the field.
McDonald scored her first basket at the 9:28 mark off the third quarter on Arizona’s first possession of the second half. Reese followed with two free throws and the Wildcat’s lead was back to ten points 35-25.
Obviously not happy with being shut out in the first half, McDonald took matters into her own hands and went coast to coast being pushed and bumped around en-route to a twisting layup 41-32, here sixth consecutive point and a Trojan timeout.
The Trojans hung tough as Pili scored her fifteenth point with just over three minutes left in the third quarter and USC 45-39.
McDonald continued to assault the Trojan defense with her drives off high post screens. With every Trojan surge, McDonald had the answer.
Aliyah Jeune hit a three to tell the Cats, “were not going down easy” and USC was back within four 50-46 at the end of three quarters.
This game was a struggle for Arizona even they led virtually the entire game, the effort they had to put in against UCLA was very evident on the court.
Dominique McBryde scored five consecutive points to give Zona a little breathing room 59-50 with 7:18 to go in the game.
Reese’s two free throws put the Cats back up by ten 61-51 and a USC timeout.
For the next few possessions, both teams traded baskets, until McDonald struck again with a left baseline trey and the U of A had the lead back up 68-55 with four minutes to go.
The beginning of the end for the Trojans was a steal and layup by Thomas that brought the crowd to its feet, 70-55 Zona.
McDonald scored all her six field goals in the second half, and McBryde came alive to chip in fourteen. Reece played a great game with 18 points and 17 rebounds.
All in all, the score was not indicative of how much Arizona had to grind to come away with this victory.
At the end of the day, this past three game stretch (ASU, UCLA and USC) has given this team a confidence boost like no other three games in years.
Attendance was 5,027 today, when most of America were starting their Super Bowl parties which shows how much this program has grown. The entire weekend attendance for the Los Angeles schools was 12,434.
This was the first sweep of the Los Angeles schools since the 2005 season.
The Bruins won today against ASU, so that puts Arizona on sole possession of third place in the PAC-12 with a 7-3 record and 18-3 overall. Oregon and Stanford lead the conference with 9-1 records.
Up next will be the most difficult road trip on the season when the Cats coming knocking to the Oregon school. Both Oregon and OSU play in from of large crowds that Arizona has had of late.
This will be a good barometer of how far this team has come. Both games at McKale were very competitive and the OSU game could have very easily been an Arizona win with a few right bounces.
