Beware of Wildcats: Williams leads gritty UA women's basketball to season-opening win

It is an award, the UA women’s basketball coach says, for the player she says is “winning the blue collar categories,” and it usually stays behind closed doors.

But when Burke handed it to Arizona forward Breanna Williams after the Wildcats beat Stanford 84-69 in their season opener Monday at T-Mobile Arena, Williams had other ideas.

Williams brought it to the postgame press conference, in front of cameras and video-recording phones from a half-dozen Tucson-based reporters, and propped it up next to her microphone.

“Bre wanted to bring it, so I said ‘Yeah!’ ” Burke said after the press conference. “It was cool.”

Burke was in no position to decline the request anyway. Williams had just collected 23 points and nine rebounds while also grabbing a steal and making a mark in the less-tangible areas of the game that Burke praised.

“It's not the highest score, the leading rebounder,” Burke said of the reasons to bestow the honor. “It’s the hustle plays, the gritty categories, the blue-collar categories. It just so happened that Bre kind of won the statistical categories today — and the toughness categories.”

Also, Williams did it all while coming off the bench, ensuring the Wildcats had energy and power even after their initial wave of starters blew through the Cardinal offense at the start of the game.

Before Williams entered the game after three minutes, UA starting guard Jasleen Green had already set up two baskets with two steals, including a layup of her own, setting the Wildcats on a pace to score 25 points off 30 Stanford turnovers.

Just over a minute after entering the game, Williams took advantage of an errant Stanford pass to score her first layup, and it was clear then that the Cardinal were not getting a breather. At least not yet.

“I think it's about taking the opportunities as they come,” Williams said. “When I'm coming in the game, I'm not thinking about scoring. I'm thinking about that defensive mindset and going to get rebounds first and foremost, and then the offense kind of comes as secondary.”

Arizona had built a 42-31 halftime lead by turning 15 Stanford turnovers into 13 points during the first half, but Stanford turned it around early after halftime, going on a 9-0 run to tie the game at 42 with 7:25 left in the third quarter.

The Cardinal had started playing a zone defense, something Burke took sort of as a compliment since she said Stanford is “99% man-to-man,” but the Wildcats were able to poke holes in it by finding Williams, the sophomore transfer from Maryland.

“This is a true story. Tell them if I'm lying,” Burke said, looking over at Williams and Aliyahna “Puff” Morris on the interview table. “We've practiced zone offense for like five or six minutes total, but I just had this weird feeling a few days ago. I was like, ‘I'm gonna put some really quick, easy offense in for zone offense’ because I just feel like they might do it, because I think we have a group of scorers and paint touchers this year.

“They threw it in. That's when they went on their run, and we literally were just coaching them on the fly, ‘Hey, flash, set a step-up screen.’ I mean, it was the craziest thing ever. But when you have hoopers, and we have talent, they can do that.

“They deserve all the credit in the world for just listening to me on the fly. The ball was finding Bre because we were kind of directing traffic and hoping it would find her.”

Arizona never trailed after that, going on a 7-1 run after the tie and taking a 61-52 lead at the end of the third quarter.

The Wildcats finished with a 15-point win over a Stanford team that shot 48.1% from the field but took 15 fewer shots in large part because it couldn’t hang on to the ball.

Half of Stanford’s 30 turnovers were a result of UA steals, with guard Sumayah Sugapong grabbing five steals and 10 points to make a significant impact despite a 3-for-14 shooting effort.

“One thing about this team and her teammates is we're rolling with Sumayah regardless,” Burke said. “She's tough as nails. I have the utmost confidence in her. She does some silly things, gets in foul trouble, but she makes game-winning plays at the same time. So I'm not going to put a leash on her and try to reel her back in any way. I'm going to continue to positively reinforce what she's doing and giving her confidence.”

Green wound up collecting 11 points and four steals, with her early two steals setting the tone for the game. Burke said afterward she wouldn't have guessed Stanford would turn the ball over 30 times but that the Wildcats' game plan was to be the aggressors.

“They're gigantic,” Burke said of the Cardinal. “I mean, they were 6-2, 6-3 on the perimeter, 6-5 in the post. We knew we were undersized, so we had to be small-dog mindset, gritty, feisty. We had to be the aggressors defensively, and that's what we were on the backside guarding the ball.”

Stanford coach Kate Paye confirmed as much.

“It was very disruptive,” Paye said of UA's defense. “They're athletic. They're quick. Honestly, they just fly around, and it creates a little bit of havoc out there. I was proud of our team for stabilizing at halftime and coming out and doing a much better job in the second half. We had a better flow going, but that is their identity, and they really imposed their will today.”

The Wildcats did so against their former Pac-12 rival and the same team that beat them in the 2021 NCAA championship game, though plenty has changed for both the Arizona and Stanford programs.

Once-powerful Stanford moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference, where it is picked to finish just 13th out of 18 teams this season, while Burke is just starting her second season at Arizona with an impactful victory.

“We're so proud of our young women, the ones who came here and wanted to rebuild this with us,” Burke said. “I think we took a tremendous step forward into doing that today. I am a happy coach. We competed. We showed toughness. We took punches and threw punches back.

“I'm just really really grateful. I'm grateful to be their coach.”