Women wake up and roll over UW

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat Arizona forward Monika Crank (22) goes for a loose ball in last night's 80-57 UA win at McKale Center. She scored 17 points to lead the Wildcats over the Huskies.

It's not clear exactly what turned the tide, but from that point on the Arizona women's basketball team went from 15 points down to an 80-57 white-wash of Washington in front of 1,427 at McKale Center.

UA head coach Joan Bonvicini said one of her assistants told her after the game, "That was the JV team, then the varsity came out."

Better yet, it could have been junior center Marte Alexander pulling her teammates together during that 15-point deficit and telling the rest of them, "We are all right."

The best answer, though, might be that Arizona's go-to-player, the All-Pacific 10 Conference Adia Barnes, was struggling and it was time that the rest of the team pull this one out.

"They realized that they had to do it together," said Bonvicini. Her team shot 52 percent for the game and was 10 of 17 from three-point range.

"Somebody has to speak up when we are struggling," freshman Lisa Griffith said. "When somebody starts yelling, it pumps everybody else up. As a team we stepped up, and you could tell the difference in our defense. It felt good."

So maybe it was the press that Arizona (15-4, 5-3) switched to for the closing minutes of the first half that forced the Huskies (9-9, 4-4) to start to fold. They committed 16 turnovers in the first half and 14 more in the second. Arizona's pressure cause d UW to start forcing three-pointers in the end because they were down by as many as 26 points.

"We came out in the first 15 minutes and did the things we wanted to do," UW coach June Daugherty said. "But then Arizona made some adjustments, and we were totally shut down by their press. We should take a lesson from Arizona, they found a way."

A good argument for the turn could also come from the play of Monika Crank. Setting a new career high with 17 points, the sophomore guard was hitting the three-point shots when other Wildcats were missing lay-ups. It wasn't just offense either, as Crank t ook a charge from UW's Jamie Redd during the turn-around and the league's third-best scorer couldn't recover. Redd finished with 15 points, seven under her average, with most coming in the meaningless final minutes. In addition, Redd had 10 turnovers to o nly one assist.

"They were collapsing on our inside players, and it was up to us (the guards) to shoot the ball," Crank said. "Tonight I shot well, but I don't got out trying to break my record each game, just whatever it takes for the team to win."

Barnes recovered to finish with 14 points. Griffith led all scorers with 23.