Arizona 6-0 after win over Cal State Bakersfield behind Cornfield’s career-high 22 points

Arizona guard Noelani Cornfield. (Stephanie van Latum/AllSportsTucson.com)

Despite a gritty game from Cal State Bakersfield, Arizona took care of business in McKale Center on Saturday night, achieving a 78-63 win and extending their winning streak to six games to open the season.

“Excited for this win today and to be able to go 6-0,” Arizona coach Becky Burke said. “I’m happy with some things, I’m excited for us to have the opportunity for us to correct some things.”

“That was an excited, happy locker room but I think we are mature enough to know that there’s a lot of things we could have corrected in that game a lot of ways we could have stretched that lead a little bit further, but ultimately we are a team that just wants to win games and we did that today.”

The Wildcats are six games into a 12-game regular season homestand.

Arizona travels to Colorado on New Year’s Eve for their first road game of the season and first road game in Big 12 play.

Burke talked about the Wildcats starting to click as a team.

“You’re seeing the trajectory. You’re seeing the time spent together,” she said. “You need game experience with one another no matter how many scrimmages you do. No matter how many times you go against your scout guys, they need game experience together.

“Six games times forty minutes, I mean that’s been invaluable. You just see the improvement game by game by game.”

Lani Cornfield was back in the starting lineup after sitting for the first quarter in the Wildcats’ win over Northern Colorado.

Burke wouldn’t get into specifics of why Cornfield was benched, but made the point that all players will be treated equally and she will hold them all accountable.

“Me holding people to a standard. There was no bad intentions on anything, but I hold a standard in this program, and how I hold one player accountable is how I hold anybody,” Burke said. “Do I want Lani on the bench for a quarter? Absolutely not.”

“I’m right with Coach Burke,” Cornfield added. “She knows who I am and she knows exactly how to go about things with me. We can talk about things one on one, hear each other out, but at the end of the day, she’s the coach and I’m the player.”

Cornfield took full advantage of regaining her starting position playing a full 40 minutes, hitting a career-high of 22 points, and adding six rebounds, nine assists and four steals.

Tucson’s own Achol Magot had a career-high eight points on 4-of-5 shooting in nine minutes.

“It feels good, I mean, just doing the stuff we practice every single day, like finishing in the paint. That’s what I do,” Magot said.

Arizona had 50 of its 78 points in the paint and shot 50 percent from the floor.

Rebounding has been a big point of emphasis this year for Burke, and getting out rebounded 37-34 by Bakersfield didn’t sit well.

“There was a lot to clean up, and we’re going to watch it and we’re going to clean it up,” she said. “And they know. They knew before I walked in that locker room. We weren’t great defensively today.

“We had some loose balls. We weren’t first to the floor where we’re not that gritty dog. You might squeak by Cal State Bakersfield, but we’re not going to do what we ultimately want to do, which is compete in Big 12.”

Arizona held a 22-13 lead at the end of the first quarter but let the Roadrunners outscore them 14-13 in the second quarter. The Wildcats went into the locker room up 35-27.

“We came out aggressive, and that’s a lesson learned,” Burke said. “We didn’t handle that first 10 minutes (of the second quarter) very well from a maturity standpoint, and we probably let it get us lackadaisical a little bit here and there.

“I think we rested on it a little bit. So lesson learned, but we now we know we’re capable of a 22 point first quarter. Now we know we’re capable of starting a game the right way. So I think lessons learned both ways from that.”

Arizona extended their lead to 62-52 at the end of the third quarter.

Cal State Bakersfield would get within eight points with a little over five minutes left in the game, but Arizona turned up the burners and held a 15-point lead as the final buzzer sounded.

Micky Perdue and MJ Jurado ended the game in double digits for the Wildcats. Perdue had 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the floor and 1 of 3 from the arc.

Jurado ended with 11-points on 5 of 6 from the floor, making her only attempt from beyond the arc.

The win over Bakersfield put an exclamation point on an outstanding November for Arizona Athletics.

Arizona football, 5-0

Arizona men’s basketball, 7-0

Arizona women’s basketball, 6-0

Arizona’s triathlon team won back-to-back national championships

Arizona volleyball ended the regular-season on a two-match winning streak

Up Next:

Arizona is back in action on Wednesday at it hosts Southern University. Tip is set for 6 p.m. Southern is 1-5 after losing 66-40 at Washington on Tuesday. The Jaguars have lost at Iowa (86-51), Iowa State (85-58), Ole Miss (94-44), UCLA (88-37) and Washington.