TUCSON -- The Arizona Wildcat women's basketball picked up its ninth straight home win and second straight in Pac-10 play with a 64-58 victory over Washington State on Saturday.
Senior forward Ify Ibekwe paced the Wildcats with 18 points, 12
rebounds and eight steals -- just two steals short of Arizona's first
triple-double in women's basketball history. Sophomore guard Davellyn
Whyte chipped in with 16 points, six rebounds, four steals and three
assists.
With the win, the Wildcats improved to 13-5 overall and 4-3 in Pac-10 play. The Cougars fell to 5-15 overall and 3-5 in the Pac-10.
"It's certainly good to get two wins at home," Arizona coach Niya Butts said. "We really battled hard today. Our backs were against the wall, but we came out and played how we needed to play. Ify (Ibekwe) was two steals away from a triple-double, but everyone stepped up today. Our bench was huge and Davellyn (Whyte) was huge. It's tough to play defense when the layups aren't falling, but we needed to score. We started to push and once the shots started falling, we got our momentum going."
It took nearly three minutes for an Erica Barnes jumper to go in to
start the scoring in the first half after a few turnovers for each team. Arizona went
on a 5-0 run in the first six minutes of play. A Sage Romberg jumper
finally went in for WSU at the 13:35 mark to get the Cougars on the
scoreboard. The Wildcats put together a 13-2 run in the first 10
minutes of the first half to pull out in front.
Washington State put together its own 15-5 run to open second half. A
9-0 run by the Wildcats in the middle of the half pushed the score to
55-38 in favor of Arizona.
For Washington State, Ireti Amojo was the leading scorer with 21
points, including 5-of-6 from behind the three-point arc. April Cook
and Katie Madison led at the glass with five boards each.
The Wildcats were without senior forward Soana Lucet on Saturday because of illness, but Ibekwe picked up the slack.
"I'm still under the weather and I'm just trying to push to get better," Ibekwe said. "I knew with Soana (Lucet) out that I would have to step up. Amanda (Pierson), Taylor (Dalrymple) and Erica (Barnes) helped us do what Soana does. These two wins were key since we came home after losing three in a row. There is always room to improve, but we have been getting better each game. I've improved a lot on my post defense and rebounding. We are working on being more physical down low and not letting our opponents get the easy shot."
For the game, the Cougars outrebounded the
Wildcats 46-45. Arizona shot 30.9 percent from the field, 38.1 percent
from the 3-point line and 72.7 percent from the free-throw line, while Washington State shot 37.5 percent, 25.0 percent and 76.9 percent, respectively.
