The Wildcats have many new faces.

Well 11 teams to cover and just over 11 weeks to the first game so lets toss the ball on the court and look at the various Pac 12 teams for the 2012-13 season.


One again Arizona has turned over a number of players. They lost 2 to graduation and 3 more transferred out. However they have 7 newcomers so a net gain of two. Arizona was 15-17 last season but after going trough their pretty weak non conference schedule in 11-1 they went 3-15 in Pac 12 play. Then the Wildcats had a nice win over UCLA in the Pac 12 Tournament before losing to ASU to end their season.

Head Coach Niya Butts returns for her 5th season. Assistants Brandy Manning, now the Associate Head Coach and E.C. Hill also return. Calamity McEntire joins the staff from Boise State where she spent 4 years. Calamity is a Tennessee Grad who did not play basketball there but was a team manager.

THE SCHEDULE: The non conference schedule is highlighted by BYU, New Mexico and UNLV. Yes looking for that 11-1 record like this last season. The Wildcats play the Oregon schools, Stanford and Cal just once in league play with the 18 game Pac 12schedule.

LOSSES: Starting Point Guard Shanita Arnold graduated. She had and excellent 1.8:1 assist to turnover ratio and scored 10 points per game. Arnold led the team in minutes per game. Starting Guard, in a 3 guard offense, Reiko Thomas also graduated. Thomas scored 6 points per game while 6th in minutes per game.

The three who transferred are 6-5 Center Aley Rhode who would have been a Soph, Guard Erin Butler who also would have been a Soph and Lindsay Fearing who would have been a Sr. Rhode started every game and was 3nd on the team in rebounding, 6 per game, and scored almost 8 points per game. Butler started 7 games and averaged 3 points per game. Fearing averaged just 2 points per game but played in most and started 3 games.


RETURNEES: The 2 returning starters are All League Guard Davellyn Whyte and Candice Warthen. Whyte has been All Pac 10/12 each of her three seasons. She’s a
5-11 Sr Guard who averaged 17 points and 7 rebounds per game last season and hit 71 threes at a rate of 37%. Whyte has a chance to become Arizona’s all time leader scorer and three point shooter. She is certainly one of the league’s top players.

Candice Warthen is a 5-5 Jr who was averaging 16 points per game through the first 9 games before hurting her foot and missing 8 games. The foot hindered her for the remainder of the season. For the year she averaged 12 points per game and probably will be the Point Guard this season.

Erica Barnes is a 6-2 Jr who averaged 11 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. She is the only experienced Big so will have to play much of the time in the Post. Barnes had a fine 2011-12 season.

The other three returnees are 6-1 Sr Cheylene Harper who played 7 minutes per game last season, 5-8 Soph Guard Layana White who played 9 minutes per game and 6-2 Sr Forward Cheshi Poston who did not play after transferring to Arizona from a JC. At JC Polston averaged 13 points and 11 rebounds in her Soph season.


NEWCOMERS: Keyahndra Canyon is a 5-9 Frosh Guard from San Diego. Canyon averaged over 20 points a game for 3 seasons at Mission Bay High School. She was ranked # 195 by Blue Star.

Nyre Harris is a 5-8 Frosh Guard from Stockton. Harris averaged 12 points and 6 rebounds, assists and steals per game as a Jr. She was ranked # 253 as a Sr, by Blue Star and the # 45 Guard by Hoop Gurlz.

Shereen Sutherland is a 6-1 Frosh from Corona, Ca.

Simone Westbrook is a 5-10 Frosh Guard from Chandler, AZ and was ranked # 40 in the US by Blue Star, but the # 59 Guard by Hoop Gurlz.

Alli Gloyd is one of three transfers signed by Arizona. She is local and is a 6-1 Jr. Gloyd was a JC All American averaging 15 points and 9 rebounds per game.

Kama Griffitts is a 6-0 Jr Wing and a transfer from an Idaho JC. Griffitts actually transferred to Arizona in January and redshirted this past season. As a JC Soph her team won the National JC Title. She averaged about 15 points per game during her two JC seasons and made 72 threes as a Frosh.

Lynette Holmes is a 6-1 Jr and a transfer from Xavier where she averaged 12 points and 5 rebounds per game in her one and one half seasons. Holmes was suspended from her Xavier team in Jan and transferred to Arizona after the past school year. She will be eligible to play in 2012-13 and will redshirt this coming season. You may remember Holmes scoring about 18 points against Stanford this past season.


OUTLOOK:

Great pair of guards and weak in the front court. It could be a long Pac 12 season for the Wildcats. No sugar coating it, they need big performances from their 6-1 and 6-2 players and they either haven’t played before or played little.