Arizona Wildcats head coach Becky Burke went into the week saying to throw out the Southern Lady Jaguars’ record because they had regularly faced Top 25 teams. She pointed to their length which definitely bothered the Wildcats on Wednesday night in a 63-57 SU victory in McKale Center.
“That team is the closest thing that we have seen to even a bad big 12 team,” Burke said. “I say that respectfully to them, and I’m sure they would do a great job in the Big 12 and compete, but I’m just saying that’s the closest thing that we have seen to the teams that we are going to see in less than a month, and so that’s very alarming to know that that’s how we handle that.”
Despite knowing it was the biggest test of the season, the loss didn’t go down easy for the first-year head coach.
“I’m really disappointed in the outcome of the game,” Burke said. “Just frustrated. And, yeah, I think that’s the best way to put it right now is frustrated. This is the first team we’ve seen with size, athleticism, along with some pretty good skill. A team that’s picked to win their conference and was an NCAA tournament team last year, and so really good test for us. Really good opponent to kind of see where we were at. I just don’t think we handled the physicality well. I don’t think we handled their pressure well. We turned it over 24 times. I thought we got bullied…just did not think we matched their physicality and competed at a high level, and just we had no edge to us and competitiveness, in my opinion.”
Arizona especially had trouble with Southern forward DeMya Porter, who scored 16 points in just over 20 minutes on the floor. Despite being saddled with foul trouble, Porter was able to score in the paint against both of Arizona’s primary bigs, Daniah Trammell and Nora Francois.
“I feel like we didn’t meet her above the free throw line,” Francois said. “We weren’t jamming her. We’re just kind of allowing her to impose her will on us. She had good patience. She was very patient with her shot, with her takes. Just a lack of having hands up on her little turnaround jumpers, as well.”
Burke opted not to use her bigger posts much. She played Achol Magot and Adde Adebanjo a total of about two minutes, likely because of the athleticism of the Jaguars.
It wasn’t just about Porter, though. The Jaguars assisted on 18 of 25 made shots. Sharing the ball meant all but one of SU’s players scored and starting guard Mykayla Cunningham had nine assists to go with her four steals.
The Jaguars were good at driving and kicking to find the open 3-point shooters. While they only went 5 for 17 from outside, even some of the misses were open looks that had Arizona guards like Micky Perdue dashing to try to close out.
“I think it’s just basketball IQ,” Perdue said. “Somebody hits one, they hit two, you probably don’t need a big gap. You need to stay there, and we got to contain the ball so we don’t need the big gaps, you know? And that’s what [Burke’s] talking about…We talk about that every day in practice, and we don’t bring it to the floor, so until we do that, we’re going to get the same outcome that we did today.”
Perdue led the Wildcats in scoring yet again. She had 17 points on 7-for-16 shooting. She played all 40 minutes of the game.
While Arizona had two players in double figures and two more with nine points each, it had its struggles on the offensive end. The Wildcats turned the ball over 24 times, which the Jaguars turned into 25 points. UA starting point guard Lani Cornfield turned the ball over nine times against six assists, making it her first game in a Wildcat uniform with more turnovers than assists. Perdue also had four turnovers.
“We have to be so good at everything that we do,” Burke said. “We’re smaller than that team. We’re less athletic in every lifetime than that team is, so we can’t turn it over 24 times. We need to be great in our actions. We need to be great with our communication. It’s just like, we cannot be loosey goosey in any area, because we are so deficient on paper against some teams. So, we have to be so, so, so good at everything that we do— communication, leadership, just paying attention to a scout coming in and talking about who you’re guarding. All these little things that there was big time slippage on tonight. You can’t afford to do that.”
Francois led the team with 11 rebounds. She also had eight points on 50 percent shooting. She dished out four assists and blocked a shot in 17.5 minutes on the floor.
Burke has said that Arizona will need to score by committee this year, but it couldn’t keep up with Southern in that regard. While five Wildcats had eight or more points, two more scored just two each, and the other four had no points. On the other end, the Jaguars got scoring from nine of 10 players. All but one of those who scored had at least four points.
The Jaguars weren’t the only ones to have fouls on key personnel. Cornfield picked up her fourth on an offensive foul with 6:12 left in the game. Sumayah Sugapong had three with just over four minutes left in the first half, although she did not pick up another in the game.
Southern took the lead at 4-2 in the game and led for the rest of the first half. The Jaguars pushed the lead to as many as 16 with 4:10 left in the second quarter, with 13 of those points coming off Arizona turnovers. That’s where they stalled and the Wildcats found their way.
Arizona closed out the first half on a 9-0 to go into the locker room down by just seven. Burke appeared to light a fire under her team during the break. An 8-0 run put Arizona up by one for the first time since the opening minutes of the game.
Southern weathered the storm, retaking and extending its lead to as many as seven in the third. That period ended with the Jaguars up by five.
The fourth had the visitors go up by double digits again. They stretched the lead to 11 on two occasions with the final one coming at 4:14 in the fourth.
Arizona turned up the defensive pressure, and a 7-0 run by Perdue and Francois cut the lead down to four with just under two minutes in the game. The Wildcats’ own turnovers kept them from getting closer. The Jaguars grabbed a defensive board off Cornfield’s intentionally missed free throw with 13 seconds to go, and they dribbled out the clock.
Arizona now awaits a visit from New Mexico on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. MST. The Lobos are 6-3 with all three losses come to Big 12 teams. They had big losses at Colorado and at home against Texas Tech then dropped a close three-point game against Cincinnati on a neutral court. Burke hopes the loss to SU was the lesson needed before the Lobos arrive and Big 12 play starts.
“I do think this team…needed to see, that we needed to feel, that we need to watch that,” Burke said. “And one thing I do know about this team is that they watch the film, and they really do try to make adjustments for the next time. So…we’re gonna get this at some point. So glad we’re getting it now, and we’re gonna need to fix this before Sunday, because it’s gonna be a very similar.”
