Arizona Women’s Basketball drops first game of 2018-19

It was a rough evening for the Arizona Women’s Basketball team (1-1), as the Wildcats drop their first game of the 2018-19 season.

Days after winning their first game of the season over Idaho State, the Arizona Women’s Basketball took a bit of a step back on Tuesday night, losing to Loyola Marymount.

Just when we thought the Wildcats would take a significant step forward in 2018-19, it seems like we shouldn’t be surprised in seeing the continued growing pains for our program stacked with young talent. Unfortunately, we just need a little more patience and support for the program.

Arizona Wildcats

After starting the year 1-0 following a throttling of Idaho State last Friday, the Wildcats didn’t quite have the same luck against Loyola Marymount.

It was a tough start to the game early on, as the Lions went up by as many as 11 in the first quarter, leading the Wildcats 20-9 after the first ten minutes. Despite a much better effort in the second quarter, the Wildcats still trailed after the second, down 36-24 LMU at halftime.

Needing a better performance, Arizona would chip away at Loyola’s lead, but were never able to get it under six points. After another period had past, it seemed like the Wildcats were doomed, trailing 53-42 heading into the fourth.

Trailing by 11, Arizona needed to Bear Down big time if they wanted to get back into this one. Down 57-44, finally, the Wildcats showed some life. Nearly six minutes later, redshirt sophomore guard Aari McDonald would convert on a lay-up to cap a 12-4 Arizona scoring run.

The Lions would again try to extend their lead, but slowly Arizona would chip away. A made jumper by Lucia Alonso with 1:17 left made cut the Lions’ lead to five at 63-58.

A steal by McDonald would lead to a transition foul that put her at the line with just over a minute left. McDonald would convert on both attempts to make it 63-60.

Both squads would continue to battle back and forth in the waning moments, but things got even more interesting when a layup by Dominique McBryde with 15 seconds left cut the deficit to just one.

A few exchanged fouls would extend the Lions’ lead back to three at 66-63. Needing some magic, McDonald would head back to the line with seconds to go.

She would make the first, cutting the lead to two, but an intentional miss was needed for the Cats to hopefully retain possession and put up another shot.

Like clockwork, McDonald missed, sending the ball out of bounds after a deflection, giving Arizona at least one more chance with 1.1 seconds to go. On the inbound, Arizona would go to its freshman Cate Reese who had a decent look, but was unable to connect. Ballgame.

Despite Arizona’s best efforts at a comeback, Loyola Marymount would escape McKale Center with the two-point win, improving to 2-0 after defeating Arizona and UCLA.

McDonald would finish the game with 39 points on 9/21 shooting while shooting 23 free throws for the game!

With the loss, the Wildcats drop to 1-1 and will return to action on Friday when they face Seattle (0-2) inside McKale.

At Zona Zealots, we are bummed Arizona couldn’t quite come away with the win, but hopefully, they can get back on track later this week! Bear Down, Arizona!