TUCSON – It was a close one down the stretch for Adia Barnes and her squad, but Arizona was able to come out on top over in-state rival ASU in game one of the Duel in the Desert. After a tough trip to the Mountain schools, Jada Williams bounced backed with a 18-point, seven-rebound, three-assist performance, while Breya Cunningham finished the game with 16 points on 7-12 shooting and eight rebounds. Arizona remains at .500 in conference, with games against No. 25 Oklahoma State and No. 9 TCU on the horizon. See what Arizona head coach Adia Barnes, along with Jada Williams and Breya Cunningham had to say postgame following the 66-59 win over ASU:
Adia Barnes
Adia Barnes postgame on the Arizona Wildcats’ win over ASU:
“Proud of our team. These are always really hard games. Just so many emotions, a rivalry game, which the freshmen don’t even know about, so it’s probably good. But, tough game, they’re a good team, they can score. They’ve been in a lot of games and had chances to win, but they’re hard to guard. I mean, you saw that, because the end of every quarter we gave up a lot of points, so not too happy with that. At this point, I’m just happy to get a win, because wins are really hard to come by.”
Adia Barnes on the biggest opportunities for Arizona coming out of today’s game:
“I mean, getting offensive rebounds, to give up 14 is a lot. I think they had some size, but not a tremendous amount of athleticism, so that’s a focus thing and a lack of discipline thing, which we’ve continued to have that problem. They’re probably lucky this time of year we can’t work on a lot, because we’d be working on that every day, but just have to be better at that.
I think the two areas that were glaring today that we have to be better in is finishing quarters strong – when we make a big play or we have a great offense, we need to turn around and play great defense. We’re celebrating and then giving up a three on the other end. Those are young, and those are bad mistakes. And then just getting better at finishing the end of quarters, because the stats I looked at today, I’m just like oh wow. So I think some of that’s just immaturity and lack of focus. We just have to improve in that area.”
Adia Barnes on what was different tonight for Breya Cunningham:
“I think more confident when you see the ball go through. I think that’s all it is. And then, because if she doesn’t make those – we did a great job of pounding it to her. I think Isis does a phenomenal job of pounding the ball inside. Isis had like a career-high, it’s not a career-high, but I think it is, but she was happy with five assists. And then I said you would have had 10 if Breya made her shots earlier, and she kind of laughed.
But a good job of pounding it inside, still feeding the ball to Breya. And she stuck with it, because she was missing a lot, and then she sat down, got a little fouls, got frustrated, came back and stayed in the game mentally strong. And that’s important, because then she made some shots. I don’t think she makes that jumper if she didn’t make a couple layups. All those things are confidence.”
Adia Barnes on Montaya Dew’s performance against ASU:
“I think just continuing to give Taya confidence. We need her to be more aggressive, and I think just more reactive at certain times. Sometimes I think just being a step slower, and just not reactive, like the cross-court pass-deflection, grabbing those things, and having a little bit more energy to do that. So just getting her confident I think. She’s a freshman, she’s been out a long time. She needs time, she needs repetition, and she needs confidence. And so I think figuring out a way to extract that from her, but it’s hard in these games where they’re tough situations. I think as she understands, and she has more confidence to be more aggressive, she’ll get more minutes because then she’s going to be a threat.”
Adia Barnes on her decision to put Skylar Jones back into the starting lineup:
“She’s been playing really well the last five games. I think she’s been really good with her teammates, and that was an important piece of it. And I think she’s performed, and came in, and she’s been listening, and she’s been just trying her hardest, giving 100 percent. It’s not about making shots or playing good or bad, it’s not about that. Honestly today, she was a really good matchup with Brown. She has the athleticism, the length to do it, so for the game it was a better matchup. But I think her body of work over the last couple of weeks has been important.”
Jada Williams
Jada Williams postgame on Arizona needing a win against in-state rival ASU, especially after a tough trip against Utah and Colorado:
“A rivalry game, they’re always going to be close, no matter what the rankings say or anything like that. Everybody wants to take that victory. We knew it was going to be a battle, we just came in here knowing that we had to play at home, win at home, and give everything we got, and I think we did that. We came off a rough loss at Colorado, we didn’t play well at all, so just coming in here and growing and getting better in practice this week, and then coming out and improving.”
Jada Williams on Arizona using a frustrating performance in Boulder to hype themselves up today:
“Yeah, I think we used it as motivation. We were all a little upset, but we didn’t blame anyone. We all stayed together, and I think that’s the important part of just staying together, learning from it, learning how to grow together, and who needs to do what, understanding your role, and I think everybody did that well this week, and everybody was locked in.”
Jada Williams on if there was any different preparation for today’s game:
“Every game, we come out here, knowing that we’re prepared for it. Some games the ball’s not going to go in the hoop, and that’s okay. So, just kind of figuring out ways to get the ball moving, getting it to different people, have other people score. So I think that was a big thing this week is just making sure we’re moving the ball, things like that, and just staying confident, because even when our shot wasn’t falling tonight, we figured out a way to pull through.”
Jada Williams on driving to the bucket after missing some early threes in the game:
“Yeah, I’m a three-level scorer and so I can get to the basket, I can shoot mid-range, and I can shoot threes, so when something’s not working, go to the next thing. I think I’ve grown a lot with that, so just staying consistent with that is important for our team.”
Breya Cunningham
Breya Cunningham postgame on struggling in the first half against ASU and playing a much more confident game in the second half for Arizona:
“Adia just told me to keep shooting, so eventually they’ll fall. I was taking good shots.”
Breya Cunningham on the impact of Isis Beh:
“I think Isis is a big help. Obviously, she’s our oldest player, so she keeps us gelled together during the games. She’s always playing hard, so I think just having her out there, having somebody that’s always that consistent is good for us.”