TUCSON, Ariz.--- The Wildcats shot nearly 45 percent from the field and led for all but 1:11, as Arizona ran by Southern, 56-45, for its third win in a row, Thursday night at McKale Center.

For Arizona (5-3), the win marked its fifth in its last six contests and its third consecutive home victory, while the Cats have either led or have been tied for 118:49 of their last 120 minutes played inside McKale Center.

Junior guard Keyahndra Cannon led the way for Arizona, as she scored a season-high 12 points on an efficient 5-of-9 from the field, while also grabbing a career-high equaling five rebounds and dishing out a game-high tying four assists in the win.

Sophomore forward LaBrittney Jones also had a nice night offensively, as she poured in 11 points on 5-of-10 shooting, while pulling down four rebounds and swatting a game-high tying two shots. Jones has scored in double figures in three of her last four games.

Senior guard Candice Warthen led Arizona in rebounding for the second straight game, as she pulled down a game-high eight rebounds, scored nine points and dished out four assists, nearly notching her second consecutive double-double.

Kendra Coleman led the way for Southern (1-6), scoring a game-high 14 points, but on just 5-of-18 shooting.

Southern took a quick 3-0 advantage on a converted three pointer on the opening possession of the game, but Arizona quickly responded with a 6-0 run of its own to claim a 6-3 advantage with 17:34 remaining in the first half. The Cats never trailed again in the contest.

UA was in front by as many as nine points in the first half, after Cannon put in a layup with 8:54 remaining in the half.

Arizona eventually took a 28-23 advantage into halftime, after holding Southern to just 31.3 percent shooting for the half.

The Cats continued to lead throughout, as they outscored the Jaguars 28-20 in the paint and dominated on the boards, outrebounding Southern 47-31, before winning by the eventual 11-point margin.

UA held Southern to just 31 percent shooting for the game to just 13 percent from three-point land.

Arizona will close out its two-game homestand with UAB, Sunday at noon MST inside McKale Center. 

GAME NOTES: Arizona earned its first victory over Southern and improves 3-0 against first-time opponents so far this year…Cats have won three games in a row since also winning three straight from Dec. 15-29th, 2013…Candice Warthen, standing at just 5-foot-5, has led Arizona in rebounding in two straight games, averaging nine rebounds per game during that span. 

ARIZONA POSTGAME QUOTES

Head Coach Niya Butts

On Arizona's overall play
“I didn't like the way our team played tonight, but we always want to give credit to the opposing team. They came in and played a tough ball game. You look at the stat sheet and anytime you hold someone to 45 points, you've felt like you've done a pretty decent job. Although we reached some of our goals defensively, offensively we turned the ball over way too many times.  They were able to score 20 points off of our 21 turnovers. That doesn't make me very happy as a coach. They were unforced errors. Southern played zone the entire game with the exception of one position where they went to man-to-man. We turned it over 21 times. That's not good. That means we will be watching a lot of film tomorrow before we start to prepare for UAB”

On Southern's zone defense
“We've faced zone before, so it was not a shock. We knew they would be running zone. It was a matter of us not being ready to play. It was a sign of our immaturity really.  We've got seven new players so we are still trying to figure out what we need to do on the court, and it showed tonight. Fortunately for us we were able to still get the win.”

On Candice Warthen's performance
“She had eight rebounds. We need all of the rebounds we can get from Candice because we are not rebounding in the post at all. As a matter of fact we had three guards lead us in rebounding. That's not good from our end. We need to have more rebounding from our bigs. We all want her (Candice) to be perfect. We all want her to go out and play a flawless game. That's going to be hard for anybody to do, but that's the level of expectation I have for her. I think she's capable. I think she's that good of a basketball player, she just needs to settle down and make sure that she makes an impact on the game without taking herself out of the game.”

On Arizona's assists tonight
“We had 22 field goals and 16 of those were assisted. That's pretty good. The only problem is that if you look over to the right on the stat sheet a little bit more you see 21 turnovers. So you never want to have more turnovers than you have assists, but that was a positive for us. We shot almost 45 percent from the floor, so that was pretty good as well. Imagine what we could have done with the basketball if we hadn't turned it over 21 times.”

Sophomore Forward LaBrittney Jones

On Southern's zone defense:

“Offensively, we weren't really moving. I give credit to them, because their defense was a problem for us. It was hard for us to make good passes in their zone defense, so we had a lot of turnovers.”

Senior Guard Candice Warthen

On early difficulties against Southern defense:

“It's always tough to play against the zone because you have to take a lot of outside shots and they force you to play around the perimeter. I feel like at the beginning of the second half, we executed our plays and moved the ball well. We determined how they defend, so we just have to be better at moving the ball and executing.”

On what the team has learned about itself thus far:

“We've learned that we have a really great opportunity this season, as opposed to last season. We've won five games already and we only won five all of last season. We know that we have a great opportunity this year, not only now in the preseason, but also in the Pac-12. We are learning about each other and more about the team every time we play.”

Junior Guard Keyahndra Cannon

On her offensive success:

“Today I just wanted to focus more on slowing down and taking what the defense gave me. My teammates found me when I was open and I was able to execute on offense.”