Seniors Brenda Pantoja and Andrea Constand walked off the McKale Center court one last time with 23 seconds remaining in Arizona's victory over Washington Saturday.

Constand, curly hair pulled back from her brow and held in place by a headband, ran off the court and hugged assistant coach Traci Waites. Pantoja, walking with a rolling grace, knelt in the center of the court with her palms spread and kissed the floor.

Both players shared smiles and tears during the postgame ceremony honoring the seniors' last home game, a ceremony that seemed to burn away all of the struggles and pain the players and the program had finally exorcised with the 78-63 victory. The victory , which Arizona head coach Joan Bonvicini called the "biggest" in school history, was in the final home game of the season. It was a season that reflected the players themselves.

Both have had a remarkable turnaround.

"Brenda Pantoja and Andrea Constand are the primary reasons that this team is successful this year," Bonvicini said. "Both have put so much time and effort into this program that they deserve all of the success that we are receiving."

Pantoja came to Arizona as a top-notch guard from Bell Gardens (Calif.) High School. She had met Bonvicini when she was the Long Beach State coach, and Pantoja knew she wanted to play for her when Bonvicini took the UA job in 1991.

"To be honest, I knew nothing about the program, but I knew everything about Coach B.," Pantoja said. "She said that Arizona was a good academic school, and I knew her program would be on the rise. That is something I wanted to be a part of."

After a promising freshman year, Pantoja's career took a turn for the worse when she injured her right knee in practice. She had two surgeries and was forced to redshirt her sophomore year.

Pantoja never seemed to recover completely from the injury. She played in 26 games the next season, only started three, and her scoring average dipped to 3.8 points per game.

"The turning point in my life came after my knee surgery," Pantoja said. "At that point, I realized that anything could be taken away from you. That is when I dedicated myself to academics and my friends and family. I also knew that I would never give up on basketball. For me, to be without basketball is for me not to breathe."

It was in 1995, her junior year, that Pantoja finally recovered from her injury and began to sparkle. Her scoring average jumped to 10.6 points, and she broke Arizona's single-season assist record with 191.

This has been her breakthrough season, however. Pantoja leads the nation in assists, averaging 9.4 per game. She has broken her own single season assist record with 236 so far this season, and is first on the all-time UA assist list and third in the caree r Pacific 10 Conference assist list.

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Tanith Balaban
Arizona Daily Wildcat

Senior forward Andrea Constand is second in the Pac-10 in 3-point shooting percentage this season at 40 percent.

From Toronto, Andrea Constand looked to be Bonvicini's first big recruit, turning down offers from Connecticut and Michigan to come to Tucson, and was one of the top players to come out of Canada.

But Constand soon found college to be a different world. Her freshman year, she averaged just 1.8 points per game, 1.7 in her sophomore year and 3.1 her junior. In three seasons she had started only five games, shot just 35 percent from the floor and hit only 18 percent of her 3-point shots.

"It was a hard time on me," Constand said. "I didn't want to leave Arizona knowing that I hadn't contributed to the program."

Utilizing the new NCAA rule that allowed players to work one-on-one with coaches in the offseason, Constand dedicated herself to becoming a better player. Working on footwork, perimeter shooting and ball handling, Constand has been among the leaders in Pa c-10 3-point field goal percentage all season at 40 percent, and has raised her scoring average almost 10 points, to 13.0 this season.

"I owe so much of my success to Coach Waites," Constand said. "She was the only one who really seemed to care about me as a person. She wanted me to succeed, and her commitment allowed me to succeed."

Waites believes it was Constand, not herself, that caused the change.

"I don't think that I had much to do with her success this season," Waites said. "Andrea wanted to work. I created a plan for her and helped to keep her confidence level up, but it was her willingness to work that helped her improve."