Following two impressive efforts to open Arizona's (3-0) season, it was finally time for the first time the Wildcats would travel and play a road game.
In the Wildcats first road game of 2024-25, they escaped a late comeback attempt from UC San Diego (1-2) 65-54 with superior play from the interior.
With some errors sprinkled out during the contest, forward Breya Cunningham continues to play really good basketball for Arizona and was pivotal in Sunday's win using her size to her advantage.
The forward recorded team highs in points with 16 and rebounds with nine in only 19 minutes as head coach Adia Barnes really balanced time throughout the entire roster to allow the bench to see more meaningful minutes.
Through three games Cunningham is UA's scoring and rebound leader averaging 13.7 and nine points and rebounds respectively a game.
A go-to option was needed on this squad seeing many young players return and newcomers join in 2024, so Cunningham's emergence is one that is good sign for the campaign.
The Cats scored more than the Tritons in each of the first three quarters, entering the fourth up comfortably 54-31.
Though, UC San Diego made it a game scraping together 23 points to UA's 11 in the final quarter but couldn't manage to pull it through at the end of the day due to getting outmatched physically early.
The physicality for Arizona is not only the reason it won this game, but is one of the foundational parts of it's plan showing up in every game.
Not only has the aforementioned Cunningham been a prominent player, Isis Beh showed up scoring nine points with three rebounds in 17 minutes.
The post is becoming a strength for Arizona and one Barnes has mentioned to be a massive benefit when Big 12 play comes around.
Still, the physical nature the Cats brought was also their worst enemy when not tamed and that showed up in the form of foul trouble for many of the players.
As a team, 25 personal fouls were called with Skylar Jones, Katarina Knezevic, Mailien Rolf, and Sahnya Jah taking three or more.
Coach Barnes' goal for assist-to-turnover ratio was not met yet again having 15 assists to 23 giveaways.
Shooting from deep continues to be an area needing improvement as well with the Cats going 5-for-18 from the 3-point line.
These however, are the pros of non-conference play as it means more opportunity to truly figure kinks out and establish a primary rotation before getting into the Big 12 games.
An injury to note occurred against the Tritons where midway through the third quarter, guard Jada Williams was forced to exit the game after sustaining a lower body injury.
All signs point to the decision to keep her from re-entering action as precautionary.
Now Arizona will gear up for it's biggest game of the young season as the Wildcats will head back home for a 6 p.m. (MST) clash on Tuesday Nov. 12, seeking revenge against UNLV (2-0) when the Rebels got the best of them 72-53 last year.
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