The second injury report for the Arizona Wildcats listed Montaya Dew as out and Blessing ‘Adde’ Adebanjo as probable. Lani Cornfield was not listed, but Arizona’s starting point guard did not start for just
the second time this year in a 75-56 loss at Colorado. While surprising, Cornfield’s brief absence wasn’t the biggest obstacle for the Wildcats.
“Obviously our start really, really hurt us,” said Arizona head coach Becky Burke. “It’s been an Achilles heel for us, whether it’s been a quarter that we’ve had a lull or a start to a game, or our ability to finish it, to…put together a full 40 minutes. You know, we lose the last three quarters by seven. So I think it was fairly even through those last three quarters, but that first quarter obviously coming out, not being prepared to compete at the highest level that we needed to. So credit to them. They had a great game plan. They executed well, and ultimately we just weren’t ready to play from the beginning, which this is not a team that has the luxury of doing that. So, frustrating with the outcome, proud of our fight, as I have been, through through certain areas and certain portions of the game, but, ultimately, it’s a loss. And that’s not what we’re here for.”
Turnovers, rebounding, and that bad first quarter did the Wildcats in. They had more turnovers (7) in the first quarter than points (5).
“I thought just not coming out ready to play, mentally locked-in, sharp,” Burke said about the turnovers. “It’s frustrating because you give them the information. You’re telling them to step to the ball…there’s going to be high ball pressure. But to go out there and actually play against it—I mean, we’re small. We are very small. We’re not athletic, we don’t have length, and when we see that, it bothers us. And I just told my locker room suck it up, because you’re gonna see it the rest of the way. We are never going to be the biggest team, the most athletic, the longest. How are you going to handle pressure? Are you going to be poised? Are you going to do the extra stuff that’s going to allow you to handle length and athleticism?”
Burke called the decision not to start Cornfield a “coach’s decision.” Nora Francois was also out of the starting lineup again as Arizona went back to a four-guard lineup with MJ Jurado playing the four.
Sumayah Sugapong started for the first time since Dec. 15 against Chicago State. She did not play against Bellarmine to end the nonconference season and played just nine minutes against Utah in the Big 12 opener.
Both Francois and Cornfield came in at the 7:12 mark in the first quarter. Colorado had already sprinted out to a 7-0 lead.
Francois had an early impact on the defensive end, even if it didn’t all show on the stat sheet. She had active hands, deflecting passes from the Colorado and making it a little more difficult for them to get their offense going.
Arizona’s other bigs struggled on defense and the fouls started to pile up early. Daniah Trammell started at the five and Adebanjo came in with just over 3.5 minutes to go in the opening quarter. The pair had three fouls each with just under two minutes left in the first half. Addebanjo fouled out in 13 minutes of play and Trammell was disqualified after 18 minutes on the court.
“It’s always tough when we’re just fouling, regardless of where it’s coming from,” Cornfield said. “I mean, fouls hurts us. I mean, they’re in the bonus with six minutes left in the quarter. But we need a presence from all five spots, and so we’re going to continue to work on it and be more disciplined and just try to get better.”
Three of the four bigs who played struggled to score. Francois was 1 for 5 from the field with two points. Adebanjo hit her only shot from the field and made a free throw for three points. Trammell didn’t score, going 0 for 3.
Burke wanted to see more from all of her post players, but she especially wanted more from Trammell.
“She wasn’t ready to roll,” Burkes said. “She wasn’t impressive. We can’t just give ourselves passes all the time for accountability…She wasn’t tough enough tonight, she wasn’t focused, her motor wasn’t very high. I would say all those things right to her, and I probably will right after this. So we need her to score. We need her to be a threat. We need her to be effective for us. And if she’s not scoring, she can’t play 20 minutes and have two or three rebounds. So she’s got to find a way to affect the game in some capacity.”
The only frontcourt player who seemed comfortable on the offensive end was Achol Magot. She came in the game in the waning minutes and played for five minutes. She scored four points on 1-for-1 shooting from the field and 2-for-3 shooting from the line.
Tanyuel Welch helped get the Wildcats within a reasonable distance of Colorado in the second quarter. It was urgent after Arizona started poorly in its first road game of the season. She scored seven of the Wildcats’ 13 points in the frame.
The Buffaloes were dominant in the first quarter, holding the Wildcats to five points and turning them over seven times. Meanwhile, CU hit 7 of 17 in the opening 10 minutes.
The Buffs especially flexed their muscles inside. They went 1 for 7 from beyond the arc but hit 6 of 11 inside during the opening quarter. They only outrebounded Arizona by one during the period, but part of that came from Arizona’s 16.7 percent shooting percentage. The Wildcats had four offensive rebounds in the first.
It didn’t get much better inside for Arizona in the second. The ‘Cats were outscored in the paint 16-4 in the first half.
The break at halftime did the Wildcats some good. They came out of the locker room on a hot streak and started to get some shots to fall inside. They tied Colorado’s 18 points in the paint in the second half to finish with a 34-22 deficit.
Perdue drove to the bucket for the opening score of the half. Those two points were the first of a 13-7 run by Arizona that cut the lead to eight. All but two of those 13 points were by Perdue and Welch. Cornfield scored the other two.
“Every game ahead of us, our defense is going to turn into our offense,” Cornfield said. “Like coach said, we’re small. We can’t keep banking on our half court sets. We have to get stops and play in transition, and during that run, we’re getting stops. We were boxing out. We were getting rebounds. And then, aside from that, we weren’t.”
The run included two 3-pointers from Perdue, who hit 5 of the 11 of outside shots she took. Welch and Cornfield began to have more success driving. The trio scored 47 of Arizona’s 56 points.
“We’re an easy guard right now, and we’re an easy scouting report, and it’s never a good thing when there’s only two or three people that you have to focus on defensively,” Burke said. “And we just talked about that in the locker room. So a challenge to the players that we currently have to knock down open shots and have confidence to take those shots. But we’re a very, very easy scout right now.”
Perdue once again led the Wildcats with 22 points. She added three rebounds.
Cornfield had a big second half to finish with 13 points. She added three rebounds, three assists, and one steal. Her four turnovers made it just her second game in a Wildcat uniform with more turnovers than assists.
Welch had 12 points, a team-high eight rebounds, two assists, and one steal. Her aggressive play seemed to spur the Wildcats to action in the second quarter, making the game more competitive.
CU found its feet again after letting its lead dwindled to single digits in the third. A 7-0 run pushed the lead back to 15 with 2:20 left in the quarter. That’s were it stood after 30 minutes.
The Buffs kept it up in the final quarter. They outscored the Wildcats in each of the four quarters, although things got tighter after the first. The closest Arizona got was the 19-18 third quarter, but it lost the second by just two points and the fourth by four.
The comeback attempt showed some silver lining in the game. It was the first time the Wildcats had played on the road this year. They had fallen behind in several games this season, but they had always been able to rely on the 5,500 fans in McKale to help lift them. This time, they had to do it without the help of one of the biggest homecourt advantages in the sport.
It wasn’t enough for Burke, though. She didn’t want the fact that it was the first road game to be used to mitigate what happened on the court.
“We started the game like we’ve never played a road basketball game,” Burke said. “We have veteran players on our team that are playing in their fifth and sixth years of college basketball. We’ve played on the road before. So everybody wants to give us these cop outs and these excuses, and I’m just not doing it. I’m just not doing it. I don’t care if it’s a road game, home game, we got to be prepared.”
Arizona will need to find a way to be prepared because the next game will be their second road game of the season. The Wildcats travel to Lubbock to face No. 21 Texas Tech on Saturday.
The Lady Raiders earned their first AP ranking since 2012 after beating Baylor last week. They followed it up with an 18-point victory over UCF on Wednesday to improve to 15-0 on the season and 2-0 in the Big 12.
