After a frustrating, yet eye-opening loss a week ago, the vibes at the McKale Center this Thursday were much better following the Wildcats’ 59-43 exhibition win over the visiting Golden Eagles. As the UA shifts its focus to the regular season, see what Arizona head coach Becky Burke and players Noelani Cornfield and Nora Francois said postgame following the exhibition win over Cal State LA.
Becky Burke:
Burke on her thoughts following the win:
“Bear Down, everyone. Bear Down. Happy podium today. Were we perfect? No. Are there still plenty of areas to improve on? Yes. But like we talked about yesterday in the press conference, I wanted to see the response of our team. We improved today, we got better today, we got the monkey off our back. And again, it wasn’t perfect, but we needed to improve on some things, and I saw them improve. I just told them in the locker room, we don’t need to be ready to win a Big 12 championship tomorrow. Did we get better from yesterday? Did we get better from last Thursday? And I would say the answer is definitely yes.
So super excited for them and for them to just feel what it feels like to win at McKale, because our fans showed up for us again, and they’ve just been tremendous, and we’re going to need them this year. We need them to be patient with us. But we showed up today and saw the same crowd we saw last Thursday, and they weren’t rattled and they didn’t waver from us. And we need that, and we appreciate it. So, happy for our players, happy for our staff, happy for our fans.”
Burke on Noelani Cornfield’s performance:
“She was plus 20. She played almost 30-35 minutes. I mean, she just does what she does, right? Four steals, 13 points, 7 rebounds, gets to the free throw line eight times. That’s what Lani does. She sets the tone. She sets the pace. You need a little run. You need some momentum. She’s gonna pick somebody’s pocket. She’s gonna make a hustle play. And she really, she’s a tone setter for us. We have a couple of those on our team, and she’s definitely one of them.
So I’m not super surprised and happy and excited because it’s something I haven’t seen before. I’ve been seeing this for over a year, where over a year with her, and she’s going to continue to do it here at Arizona. So I’m excited that she’s just been able to translate and bring her name here confidently.”
Burke on the team’s execution of non-negotiables such as rebounding:
“We gave up a few (offensive) boards late, I think. But until that point, I thought that was something that we really, really emphasized, like, we need to win the glass. We were plus 14 on the boards, but held them way under their average of offensive rebounding, took them out of transition the way that we needed to. We were talking, we were bouncy, our body language was good, like all the things that we just didn’t respond to well last week, I wanted to see improvement in those areas, and I thought if we did that, we would the result would take care of itself. And it did.
We played with some new lineups, like, we figured out some things with with rotations in minutes and what looked good tonight. And those are answers that, you know, that’s why we played the two exhibition games, to get some of those answers solidified and figure out some of those things. So we have 80 minutes of basketball under our belt to figure out what didn’t work, what did work, and we’ve got some great information. And we we go from there.”
Burke on the improvement in the consistency and effort of Arizona’s bigs, including Nora Francois:
“Well, we got one (Nora Francois) sitting right next to me that did a dang near a double-double. And I don’t know, call it her coming out party, or whatever you want to call it, but we’re looking for that, those couple bigs that are gonna solidify themselves as our rotation bigs. I challenged Nora this morning. I’ve challenged her for last week in practice. We’ve had great conversation, but at the end of the day, we needed somebody to step up. I thought she came in and I thought she did her job at a high level. She wasn’t perfect either.
You know, I thought Daniah played some really good minutes in the first half too. But to have a couple bigs that come in and play well and give us some confidence moving into next week is all we can ask for. And I think those two did that tonight. You know, it’s going to be game by game, right? This is a game where we needed to defend on the perimeter, at the post position. And Nora does that well, Daniah does that well. So those two played, did their job, and super happy for them.”
Burke on Mickayla Perdue’s dominant fourth quarter:
“I think it just goes back to what Lani just said, like team basketball. We really preached playing together this week, playing together, celebrating each other, stepping up when we need each other, playing the people that are gonna play the best together, doesn’t even have to be the best five individually. But what five play the best together? So, Lani is a ding dong and gets a foul, and then Micky steps up, and then when Micky does something silly, Sumayah is able to step up. So I thought we did it by committee tonight.
I don’t think we are going to be a team this year that you’re just going to be able to say one person does it every single night, and we put the load on their back. Like, that’s not how this team is built. We need, we have almost four people in double figures. We only scored 60, but so to have almost four in double figures…We got to do it by committee, we got to share the load, we got to just say whoever’s the hot hand, we’re going to continue to go to them (and) when they’re not anymore, we go to the next person, we make the extra pass, we advance the ball in transition. Were selfless, because we’re not talented enough, one-on-one, anywhere on the floor, to be selfish.”
Burke on Kamryn Kitchen’s impact:
“Kam is so talented, and she’s literally not even scratched the surface. And so I’m happy for her (that) she’s plus 22, but she could be plus 60, like she has so far to go to reach her full potential. And I mean that in a good way and so complimentary. We all know that like, gosh, if she’d get a little more physical, she would do this. So it’s great. We needed that tonight. She played 20 minutes. Never in my wildest dreams would I think she’d play 20 minutes tonight, but if she earns it, she’s gonna be able to do that for us. But she’s got so much potential, and I think she’s literally only scratched the surface. So she continues to get better day-by-day and just continues to get coached and continues to look at these guys and learn from them.
We need her, like we need everybody, so happy for those 20 minutes, because I think she’s gonna feel more confident, feel better after this game, getting some legs under her. She hasn’t played college basketball. She’s a top 50 kid out of high school that enrolled early at Virginia, had a surgery, got hurt, like this is legit. She played five minutes the other night. I didn’t play her last Thursday, so this was a really, really good thing for her to knock the rust off a little bit.”
Burke on the team handling Sumayah Sugapong’s flagrant foul:
“My mindset is like, let me worry about the refs. Let the fans do their thing, and then we lock in and we stay in our circle, in our bubble. We can’t look at the scoreboard and look at the replay and see what happened and complain like, no, I’ll handle the refs, the fans will do their part, but we huddle, we stay locked in, we stay focused, because the wheels can come off in that moment, and I’ve seen that happen before, but if we have a mature team that stays locked in and stays together through that, that’s a good sign, which I think we did.
But I just told the official I think she kicked because she felt like she was fouled prior to that, and the officials were great, great explanation. They went back, they made the right call, ultimately. But I think it was good banter back and forth. These exhibitions, that’s something that we’re learning too, officiating, and them learning us. So I thought it was good, thought we stayed locked in, thought we didn’t let it get the best of us, or let it get us unraveled. So that’s what that’s encouraging for me.”
Burke on building in-game rapport with her staff on the bench:
“It was great. Banter was great. Conversation was great. Timing. All of it. I’ve have an elite staff that I’m super thankful for. So I soak it in, I listen, I take what I want, I leave what I don’t. Super happy. We bumped Michelle up. She was right next to me tonight. So yeah, I think it’s great. We all have tremendous amount of respect for each other. We don’t talk over each other. No one wants a voice that over somebody else. So it’s been really good. Definitely thought it was smoother today than it was last week, and that’s just how it’ll be moving forward, just getting to know each other better and timing and all that stuff. But it was great.”
Noelani Cornfield:
Cornfield on Arizona doubling its assists from last week to this week:
“This is a team game. The first thing we wanted to emphasize was playing as a team, and that’s what we did tonight.”
Cornfield on holding Cal State LA to five points in the fourth quarter:
“They started to come back. They had their run. And then that’s just us talking in the huddles and timeouts, like, alright, they had their run. Now we got to continue to get stops. Just because we were up however many points, just because of the fourth quarter doesn’t mean the game is over. So we had to play until the buzzer sounded, and that’s what we did.”
Cornfield on the defensive side of her game:
“That’s been me my whole life, my whole game. I’m small and I’m quick. I’m lower to the floor. The ball is always near me, and I’m quick. So, whatever I got to do to get a win, that’s what I’m going to do. Regardless, if I got to get the bruises, if I got to do whatever so someone else can shine, or we get the win, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Nora Francois:
Francois on her focus over the last week to have a big performance:
“I think, yes, the film was very helpful, but also coming back into practice and being able to apply everything that coaches had pinpointed in the film. Like, we were not in gaps, we were sagging off, we were helping off the strong side. Being able to watch that in real time during the game, and then go back and watch that in the film was very, very helpful. Definitely helped us learn.”
Francois on learning to play winning basketball:
“I think that means playing outside of yourself, playing for a cause, playing for the win, not playing for your stats, or playing just to play, like there’s this extra drive that is required to win. And when you have five people on the court, or five people who want to be on the court and want to win, that’s when you’ll find success.”
Francois on the energy the crowd at McKale provides:
“This is all new to me. I went from having maybe 75-85 fans at our games, majority of them from the other team. It’s not that I’m looking up in the crowd or anything, but it’s a different atmosphere. It’s definitely motivating, like you can draw and fuel yourself from the energy that’s literally radiating in McKale.”