Best friends, Jada Williams and Breya Cunningham starred together at La Jolla Country Day, winning back-to-back CIF San Diego Section Open Division girls basketball championships in 2021-22 and 2022-23.<\/p>\n
Williams and Cunningham then took their immense talents to the University of Arizona to play for former Mission Bay High School star Adia Barnes.<\/p>\n
But after two years in Tucson, the two left the U of A and parted ways, Cunningham landing at Texas and Williams at Iowa State. (Barnes ended up coaching at SMU.)<\/p>\n
Both made the NCAA Tournament this season. While Iowa State lost in the first round to Syracuse, Texas has a date Saturday with Kentucky in the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
Cunningham is one of four local women whose teams are still alive in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s joined by Asia Boone (Mater Dei Catholic) of Kentucky, Tajianna Roberts (La Jolla Country Day) of Louisville and Ice Brady (Cathedral Catholic) of top-seeded UConn.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-4 Cunningham has started 33 games for 33-3 Texas. She\u2019s averaging 8.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game and has blocked 34 shots.<\/p>\n
Williams averaged 15.6 points, 3.3 rebounds and 7.7 assists for an Iowa State team that finished 22-9. She led the team in assists (230) and steals (29).<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Williams announced that she will be entering the NCAA transfer portal.<\/p>\n
Sweet 16<\/p>\n
Roberts, who played with Williams and Cunningham at LJCD, leads Louisville with 11.4 points per game and 104 assists while playing a team-high 28.5 minutes per game. She was a first-team All-ACC selection this season. The Cardinals beat Vermont and Alabama to reach the Sweet 16, where they will play Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Boone started her career at Mater Dei Catholic, finishing at IMG Academy. A transfer from Liberty, Boone is averaging 10.2 points and 2.7 rebounds for Kentucky.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Brady played 71 games with 15 starts over her last two seasons, but suffered a knee injury in the Huskies\u2019 second game of this season, underwent surgery and has not played since. UConn is 36-0 this season and plays North Carolina in the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
WBIT<\/p>\n
San Diego State\u2019s Bailey Barnhard (Del Norte) and Naomi Panganiban (La Jolla Country Day) are still playing in the WBIT after the Aztecs missed the NCAA Tournament. They Aztecs will take on Kansas in Thursday\u2019s WBIT quarterfinals in Lawrence, Kan. Panganiban is averaging 12.2 points and 2.1 rebounds per game. Barnard is averaging 4.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s basketball<\/p>\n
Only three local players \u2014 Idaho\u2019s Isaiah Brickner (St. Augustine) and Kristian Gonzalez (Mater Dei Catholic) and Saint Mary\u2019s Tony Duckett\u00a0 \u2014 made the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
Brickner averaged 12.1 points and 3.9 rebounds per game for Idaho, which lost in the first round to Houston. Gonzalez was injured in the Vandals\u2019 first game and missed the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
Duckett, who transferred to Saint Mary\u2019s from USD, averaged 3.1 points per game this season for the Gaels, who lost in the first round to Texas A&M.<\/p>\n
NIT<\/p>\n
Freshman Jake Hall (Carlsbad) and senior Luke Haupt (St. Augustine) have led New Mexico into the semifinals of the NIT.<\/p>\n
Hall leads the Lobos with 16.2 points a game. He also has 54 assists and 28 steals for New Mexico, which meets Tulsa in the semifinals at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
Haupt is averaging 7.8 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. Chris Howell (Torrey Pines) was injured in New Mexico\u2019s 10th game and has played just once since.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Devon Arlington (San Marcos) averaged 2.7 points and 2.0 rebounds per game for Yale, which lost to UNLV. Jacob Tsai (Bishop\u2019s) played three games for the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jurian Dixon (St. Augustine) had a nice season for UC Irvine, which lost to UNLV. Dixon averaged 16.0 points and 3.6 rebounds per game for the Anteaters.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Vincent Ricchiuti (St. Augustine) played in four games for Wake Forest, which lost to Illinois State after beating Navy.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kalen Lowery (Foothills Christian) averaged 4.5 points and 3.2 rebounds per game for Nevada.<\/p>\n
John Maffei\u2019s Alumni Report appears periodically during the college season. Readers are encouraged to send information on local athletes to john.maffei@sduniontribune.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Best friends, Jada Williams and Breya Cunningham starred together at La Jolla Country Day, winning back-to-back CIF San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2044,181,74,76,75,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-236845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-high-school-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}