Seth Doria

Alexander, crowd lead women over Santa Clara

The Arizona women's basketball team is known for its Jekyll and Hyde personality.

Sometimes they play like they can take on anybody and teach them a lesson about how to play ball.

Other times, they look like they could use a couple of lessons themselves.

Funny thing is, they usually play both ways every game - one way the first half, the other the second half.

And so it was as the Wildcats opened the first round of the NCAA tournament as a three seed against the 14th seed, Santa Clara.

With Santa Clara ahead 36-31 at halftime, people in the crowd may have had flashbacks to 1993, when the Santa Clara men's basketball team, a 14 seed, defeated the Arizona men's team, a three seed.

Arizona had hit only 14 of their 38 shot attempts, one of eight from long distance and Adia Barnes had only scored seven points in 12 minutes due to foul trouble.

Santa Clara, on the other hand, shot 54 percent from the floor and got seven assists out of point guard Lisa Sacco.

"Our offense wasn't in sync first half," senior guard DeAngela Minter would say after the Wildcats came back to win 75-63.

"I think I was nervous," Barnes would say.

"I had butterflies," Marte Alexander confessed.

And so down by five at the break, head coach Joan Bonvicini and her team knew they had 20 minutes left to come back or face a long offseason starting immediately.

"I just knew we weren't loosing today," said Alexander, who led all scorers with 23 points on 11 for 14 shooting. "I took care of what I needed to take care of and all five of us were doing what we needed to do."

The result: Arizona opened the second half on a 10-0 run, took the lead and never let it go and the crowd of 3,850 loved every minute of it.

"They took us out of our game in the first half, but we did not panic," Bonvicini said. "I was proud of our players. They refocused and opened the second half with a run that set the pace for the second half. I was glad we were at home. The fans helped us a lot."

"We really had to play a tough game and fight them and fight the crowd," said Sacco, who added only one assist while committing seven turnovers in the second half. "For most of the first half the crowd wasn't a factor. When they went on a run the crowd definitely got into it."

"I thought the fans were tremendous tonight," Alexander added. "I am an emotional player so I will play to the crowd anyway. It's great when they respond to you."

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