The book on the players who appeared for last year’s Arizona women’s basketball team is closed. While one player who did not appear on the court last season is still unclaimed, the last two Wildcats who contributed on the court made their announcements on Friday evening. Both will play in the SEC.
Guard Tanyuel Welch is headed to Missouri while forward Daniah Trammell is going to Arkansas. Both players will be within six hours of their hometowns.
Welch came to Arizona last year after spending three
years at Memphis. The native of Indianapolis redshirted one of those years due to a knee injury. That left her two years to play. She will spend the final year in Columbia, roughly 5.5 hours from home.
Welch was impressive from early practices, where she showed her high motor. It took her a while to crack the starting rotation, though.
She played in 28 of Arizona’s 30 games, starting in 19 of them. She appeared in the Wildcats’ first exhibition game on Oct. 23, then she disappeared until their second regular season game when she played three minutes against UC Irvine.
The following week, Welch showed just how good she could be. She had a big game against Grambling. She had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 1 block, and 1 steal in 20 minutes. She shot .625 from the field.
She was just as strong in the following game against NAU. She scored 10 points on 50 percent shooting. That went along with 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block in 29 minutes. Two games later, Welch played only two minutes against Cal State Bakersfield.
Her first start came against Chicago State on Dec. 15. She established herself as a critical part of the lineup. She started in 19 of her final 20 appearances.
She averaged 8.7 points per game on 46.5 percent shooting. Most of her success came on 2-point shots, where she hit 50 percent of her shots. After being a strong 3-point shooter in her two years on the court at Memphis, that part of her game gave her trouble at Arizona.
She led the team with 5.2 rebounds per game. She had 1.2 assists against 1.5 turnovers. On the defensive end, she was responsible for 1.0 steals per game while only committing 1.2 personal fouls per game.
Trammell was originally committed to Burke when she was at Buffalo. When the coach headed out West, she convinced the Cincinnati native to follow her.
Burke has said that her recruiting tactic at Buffalo was to go for players on the cusp of Power 4 ability, but who could possibly fall to a lower level for various reasons. Trammell was one of those players, and she did enough in her freshman year to show other programs that she has Power 4 potential.
Trammell was fifth on the team with 8.0 points per game. Her 2.3 rebounds per game were seventh on the Wildcats. Her 20.7 minutes per game were sixth. She was one of only two players to appear in all 30 contests, and her 21 starts were the third most on the team and the most by a freshman.
