Arizona Women’s Basketball regular season recap

Arizona Women’s Basketball team ended their regular season with a 20T loss to the No.9 Oregon State Beavers 65-60 on senior night. Time to recap the regular season.

The 2018-19 Arizona Women’s Basketball team had an overall winning season, even though their Pac-12 record doesn’t show for it. Many closes loses in regulation and overtimes, this team was that close from being a real contender in the Pac-12 this season. With the foundation of Aari McDonald and Cate Reese, Coach Adia Barnes has the key ingredients to a successful program. Next season should be exciting as this team will be more experienced and understand what it takes to win close games.

Overall, this team finished with a record of 17-12 and 7-11 in the Pac-12.  They will be the No.8 seed in the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament and will be taking on No.9 USC. The game takes place in Las Vegas on Thursday at 2pm PST on the Pac-12 tournament. The winner of this game will take on No.1 Oregon Ducks. In their only meeting of the season, the Wildcats beat the Trojans at home 71-68.

So close. This team has had many close hard fought battles, but have come up just short. They had three games in which they lost by 2 points, they had a 3OT thriller against UCLA and loss and to end the season they loss in 2OT 65-60 against the Beavers. Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way and that’s what seam to happen this season for the Wildcats.

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The Wildcats though did get the bounces their way early on in this season, setting a school record of winning 11 straight games in a row, before losing to Utah. During that winning streak, this team seem to be unstoppable. Their was also this excitement in Tucson around this team’s performance, which the city hasn’t seen in many years.

The confidence this team currently has knowing how close they came to beating top ranked teams will pay off, if not in the Pac-12 tournament, come next season. Yes, after a losing a few of these in the same season can take a toll, they just need to believe in the process and know that their time will come.

Before I forget, for all Wildcat fans reading this, if you haven’t already, we need to spread the word and get more fans out to support this team. Their is no reason why we shouldn’t be supporting them. Players feed off the energy in McKale Center. Time for everyone to get up and Bear Down!

One of the main reason’s for the team’s overall success this season was the play of redshirt sophomore transfer from the University of Washington, McDonald. Her quickness, her ability to create her own shot, her ability to shoot the long range ball and her ability to come up in the clutch set her apart from everyone else in the Pac-12. Plus, she can score.

McDonald set the single season Wildcat scoring record, once held by her current coach Barnes, scoring 721 points. She also had 7, 30 point games and became the fourth player ever in the Pac-12 to score 700 points and have 120 assists in a single season. McDonald was also named Pac-12 player of the week three times this season. When McDonald is finished with her career at Arizona, she will go down as one the greats to have played for the women’s program.

Other top performers this season include Reese, Sam Thomas, Dominique McBryde (who had a season high against the Beavers with 20 points), Lucia Alonso and Tee Tee Starks. As a team, they shot almost 44% from the field and 34% from three. Per game, they averaged close to 36 rebounds and 13 assists per game. These seem like good stats, but inconsistency is what hurt this team in the end. Not able to perform at a high level consistently or not finding a way to make that one extra bucket or two that would help them prevail in close games.

Each regular season wouldn’t be complete without thanking seniors for what they have done, Destiny Graham and Lindsey Malecha:

As this team plays more games together combined with new recruits coming in, they have a legitmate chance at finishing in the top half of the Pac-12 next season. Coach Barnes and her staff are on the brink of doing some real special things these next couple of seasons

At Zona Zealots, we would like wish the women’s basketball team much luck as they head into the Pac-12 tournament on Thursday. No matter what the outcome may be, this team has much to be proud about as great things happen to those who wait. Bear Down, Arizona!