No. 10 Arizona was as flat as it has been all season to open Friday's game against Utah at McKale Center. The Wildcats struggled to hit shots early and generally had problems with their energy on the floor.
The game was begging for a spark from someone, and Arizona eventually found it in guard Bendu Yeaney who scored 13 points in the second quarter to pull her team out of its rut.
UA (11-2, 9-2 Pac-12) outscored the Utes 20-9 in the quarter taking a lead with five minutes left in the period on a 3-pointer from Yeaney. Though the game became close in the final minutes, the Wildcats would never give the lead back in what ended up as a 66-54 victory.
Yeaney finished the game with 14 points, and her contributions in the second quarter put the team in position to pull out the victory.
"Bendu had a great practice this week, all this week," star UA guard Aari McDonald said of her teammate. "Going hard, making us better and it translated to the game. So, I'm proud of her for that. She ignited us and kind of got our momentum going."
The slow start to the game is certainly not something new for the Wildcats. There have been moments throughout the season when UA had to find ways to come back from deficits, but for the most part those issues have been behind Adia Barnes' team.
It is something that hasn't come up as much once the season had a chance to play out some more, but he lackluster start certainly made the team uneasy to open the game.
What made the Wildcats more uneasy was the final stretch of Friday's contest.
Arizona had a 19-point lead with 5:46 to play but that dwindled to just six points with a minute remaining in the game. UA's defense relaxed during that time allowing the Utes to put a small scare in the Wildcats during the fourth quarter.
"I felt that we didn't lock in," Barnes said. "Being up 19 points with five minutes to go it tells me we're not locked in if we let Utah outscore us in the fourth quarter by one. Those are just discipline things. For us to get better and for us to be an elite team, we have to be able to sustain runs and we have to be able to put people away when we're up.
"Credit to Utah, because Utah did a really good job of picking us apart down the stretch. We have to be more disciplined. We can't take such quick shots down the stretch. When we're up we don't need one pass and a shot. We don't need super quick offense."
Despite their unhappiness with the finish Friday night, McDonald and Cate Reese passed a couple important milestones in their careers. McDonald surpassed 2,000 points in her career while Reese broke through the 1,000-point mark with her performance Friday night.
Veteran forward Sam Thomas recently surpassed 1,000 points in her career.
All three players have been instrumental in reviving the program under Barnes, and the UA head coach certainly understands their importance on this year's team plus the program's continued development calling them the "foundation" of what's happening now for the Wildcats.
"It's a great milestone to pass, but we just have to keep looking forward," Reese said. "We have a big game against Colorado on Sunday, so we just need to look forward to hat. Like Aari said, we're definitely not proud of how we played especially at the end of the game today. So, there's stuff we need to work on tomorrow and just get better."
UA will finish out its home stand against the Mountain schools with a matchup versus Colorado on Sunday afternoon at McKale Center.
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