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Arizona football training camp: Defensive line ‘not about running around people’ under Joe Salave’a

2025-08-04T13:55:52-07:00

Arizona Athletics

Danny Gonzales is not one to mince words. He has clear expectations for the defense he’s overseeing. And it all starts up front.

“We will not allow people to run the football,” Gonzales said last week. “That’s a mentality, as much as it is schematics. And we will put enough bodies up front that people will not run the football.”

Gonzales’ 3-3-5 scheme will regularly bring a fourth player to the line of scrimmage, likely either returning edge rusher Chase Kennedy or Montana transfer Riley Wilson, both of whom will also be tasked with playing off the ball. The other three spots, the true defensive line, are under the guidance of former UA great Joe Salave’a.

A mainstay of the Desert Swarm defenses in the mid-1990s, Salave’a has had successful stints coaching the D-line at Washington State, Oregon and most recently Miami (Fla.). The Hurricanes were in the top 20 against the run in Salave’a’s last two seasons.

Arizona was 98^th against the run in 2024, allowing 174 yards per game, with five opponents rushing for more than 200.

There are only a few holdovers from last year’s D-line, most notably senior Tre Smith and redshirt sophomore Dominic Lolesio. Almost everyone else is new to the team, which actually may have helped speed up the learning curve during spring ball and into preseason camp.

“To the credit of our players, they’re able to grasp materials a lot,” Salave’a said Monday. “You have to get most of these things in so that you have the ability to be able to kind of decipher what you need each week going into the season. We’re need to get it on film so that we can look at it and see if it works in good if it doesn’t. We just have a lot of guys that haven’t had a lot of game experience overall. I think the way we’re training and the way we’re pushing these guys and setting the tone up front is critical, and so I’m excited for those guys.”

Salave’a is hoping to be at least three deep at every spot up front, both in order to keep guys fresh during games but also to be prepare for the inevitable injuries. There’s also the possibility of reinforcements coming later in camp, as junior college transfers Ezra Funa and Zac Siulepa are in the process of completing academic work in order to be eligible for this season.

“They’re working hard to get here,” Salave’a said. “When they get here, we’ll assess and give them a plan, and the plan that’s pretty going to be a simple one. They’ve also been instructed and given the opportunity to train and stay active while they’re still working to get here.”

Last season Arizona was last in the Big 12 in tackles for loss (61). Miami, which played one more game than the Wildcats, had 84 and registered at least 82 in each season under Salave’a.

“It still comes down to striking, knock back, tear off, pursue and tackle,” he said. “Those are the things that we still have to make sure that our guys are locked in. I’m not about running around people. I think the goal has already been set, the expectations has already been set to the group that we’re going to go after people head up, we’re not going to go round around, we’re not going to trick people.”

Tetairoa McMillan, Randy Robbins to join Arizona football Ring of Honor

2025-08-04T10:40:18-07:00

Photo by Bruce Yeung/Getty Images

They’ll go in Aug. 30 during the Hawaii opener

Fresh off one of the greatest careers in school history, and just ahead of what should be a promising rookie season in the NFL, Tetairoa McMillan will be making a return trip to Tucson for the season opener Aug. 30 against Hawaii.

It won’t just be a homecoming, though. It will also be to include T-Mac in the Ring of Honor.

McMillan and former UA cornerback Randy Robbins will be formally inducted as the 51^st and 52^nd members of the Ring of Honor, which is displayed along the west side of Arizona Stadium above the bleachers.

We are thrilled to announce the addition of two Wildcat legends to the Ring of Honor ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/sxi0Flqrt2
— Arizona Football (@ArizonaFBall) August 4, 2025

McMillan, now a rookie wide receiver with the Carolina Panthers after they took him 8^th overall in the 2025 NFL Draft, left the UA as the career leader in receiving yards with 3,423. He broke the record previously held by Bobby Wade, the Wildcats’ receivers coach who is also in the Ring of Honor and who helped notify T-Mac of his inclusion on Monday.

The greatest receiver to represent the Block A. pic.twitter.com/SVgVWyq1p6
— Arizona Football (@ArizonaFBall) August 4, 2025

McMillan’s NFL debut is set for Friday against the Cleveland Browns in a preseason game, with his first regular season contest Sept. 7 in Glendale against the Arizona Cardinals.

Robbins, who played for the UA from 1980-83, had 12 career interceptions with four returned for touchdowns. He was a 4^th round pick of the Denver Broncos in 1984 and played nine seasons for Denver and the New England Patriots.

Former Arizona Wildcats Gabe York and Terrell Brown Jr. fall in TBT final

2025-08-04T06:00:00-07:00

Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Nine years after Gabe York lost to Wichita State in the NCAA Tournament, the former Arizona Wildcats guard suffered another defeat at the hands of the Shockers program.

York and fellow ex-Arizona guard Terrell Brown Jr. lost in The Basketball Tournament championship game Sunday as their Eberlein Drive fell to the Aftershocks in Wichita, Kansas in a winner-take-all contest for $1 million.

York couldn’t find his stroke, going 3 for 13 including 1 for 11 from 3-point range in the 82-67 loss. York had 11 points for the game, while Brown Jr. contributed eight points off the bench.

The Aftershocks, a collection of mostly Wichita State alums, had the benefit of playing a home game at Wichita State’s arena, the Charles Koch Center.

Eberlein Drive is an assortment of former D-1 players who compete for a Michigan-based team named after a street that the club’s general manager grew up on. The winner of TBT takes home a $1 million prize that is split among the team’s players, coach and GM.

York was Eberlein Drive’s top scorer throughout the single elimination 64-team tournament, but the Aftershocks successfully defended him Sunday.

Arizona fans will remember that York also struggled against Wichita State in the Wildcats’ NCAA Tournament first round loss to the Shockers in 2016. York went 3 for 9 that game in 65-55 upset loss.

Multiple members of the 2015-16 Wichita State team play for the Aftershocks, including Conner Frankamp, who scored 10 points in the Shockers’ NCAA Tournament win.

One day York may avenge his Wichita State demons, but that day wasn’t Sunday.

Arizona football training camp: Versatility will be key to improvement for running back room

2025-08-03T16:00:00-07:00

Arizona Athletics

Last season, Arizona’s running back room was in a good place to start the season. It was a short lived reality once Jacory Croskey-Merritt was held out for eligibility reasons, and then Rayshon Luke shut it down in order to redshirt and go into the transfer portal.

That left Quali Conley and Kedrick Reescano to take most of the carries. Even freshman walk-on fullback Kayden Luke was called into rotation.

This season, running backs coach Alonzo Carter wants the theme to be versatility. Whether that’s in explosiveness, power, agility, Carter wants his squad to be able to do everything.

“Each year you have a different group of guys, and you try to play to their strengths, and you coach to the strengths of your talent, and this year that is the strength of the talent,” Carter said.

Going along with the versatility, adding depth in the room was a big goal of the offseason. Now, Carter feels every player can do whatever is asked of them.

“They all can line up outside, they also can run inside zone, outside zone, whatever it is we need them to do,” he said.

A guy that has shown a lot of versatility earlier in fall camp is junior Portland State transfer Quincy Craig.

“He did a lot of things, catching the ball as well as in the special team space,” Carter said about Craig. “So you’ve seen the kid that can run the ball, but excellent routes and good hands and is really physical in the run game.”

One of the underlying benefits from having two guys take most of the reps last season is that now a guy like Reescano who has a year of Big 12 play under his belt.

“He’s played in the Big 12 now for a year, so he brings something to the table that nobody else in the room has,” Carter said. “He has experience playing in some games, so his leadership is open and welcomed.”

Reescano had 78 carries for 359 yards and one touchdown in 2024. Most players would be ready to boost those numbers, but he is just ready to work hard everyday to win more games.

“He’s not a real rah rah guy,” said Carter. “He likes to just put his hard hat on and go to work, and he’s a pleasure to coach, and I have a lot of fun with him.”

With Conley gone, the void is going to be filled with another experienced player in Texas State transfer Ismail Mahdi.

Something that Carter has done this offseason is pair up some of the younger guys with the veterans of the group. Reescano has taken freshman Wesley Yarbrough under his wing and Mahdi has taken another freshman in Cornelius Warren III.

“I like Corn, he’s a learner,” Mahdi said about Warren. “He wants to get out there and just learn, get into the playbook, and just wants to get out there and make plays.”

“I see a lot of myself in Wesley, like as a freshman, because I didn’t know everything, but I wanted to learn it so bad,” Reescano said about Yarbrough.

Overall, the running back room is in a similar position to where it was last year, but maybe just a bit more depth. What that means for Carter is that the future is bright.

“Arizona Wildcats football going to a bowl game, going to a Rose Bowl,” he said. “We’re all about the team and whatever we gotta do to help this team win, that’s what we want to do.”

How does the running back room see itself? There was only one word for Reescano to describe it.

“Unstoppable,” he said. “It’s hard to stop something that you can’t predict.”

One of the bigger parts to the Seth Doege offense is balance. Carter and the running backs believe they will be able to provide that balance once they hit the field against Hawaii on August 30th.

Different paths, same destination for Arizona men’s basketball newcomers Dwayne Aristode, Evan Nelson

2025-08-03T03:00:00-07:00

Harvard transfer Evan Nelson | Arizona Athletics

Arizona’s 2025-26 roster will include players from three continents and six countries. That’s nothing new under Tommy Lloyd, who cut his teeth in the business as an international recruiter and that has continued as a head coach.

But the current roster also includes a player who grew up in Tucson, yet needed to go across the country for a few years—and endure a major injury—before being able to live the dream of being on his hometown team.

“I never would have thought it was happening if you would have asked me four or five years ago,” senior guard Evan Nelson said Friday. “But I think it just goes to shows that there’s not one way to achieve your goals. There’s multiple roads, multiple paths, if you just keep working every day to make it happen.”

Nelson, who played high school basketball just up the street from campus at Salpointe Catholic, is the UA’s lone pickup from the NCAA transfer portal. He comes to the Wildcats after four years at Harvard, where he started 51 games but also had to miss a season because of an Achilles injury. That injury, which cost Nelson his junior season, paved the way for him to finish his career in Tucson.

Ivy League schools do not permit redshirts, meaning the 2024-25 season was the last Nelson could play for Harvard. He knew that was the case throughout last year, when he averaged 9.1 points per game and shot 40.4 percent from 3-point range.

“It was in the back of my mind,” Nelson said. “I knew that I’d have the opportunity if I wanted to, to play another season of college basketball as a graduate student. But I didn’t want to get too worked up in that. Just wanted to stay in the moment and finish it out with my team.”

Once in the portal, there was no other place Nelson wanted to go. Assistant coach TJ Benson made that possible by reaching out soon after to get the ball rolling.

“People said that I came here because it’s the Harvard of the West,” Nelson said. “But I think as far as in the basketball world and in the sports world, nobody has an alumni network like Arizona. You see where guys have been, not only in the NBA, but just in the professional sports world of broadcasting, like there’s not a lot of opportunities at other schools outside of Arizona where I could have the opportunity to network.”

Arizona added Nelson to provide starting point guard Jaden Bradley, who averaged 34.1 minutes per game in 2024-25, with an experienced backup.

“It doesn’t take you long, you talk to Evan one time, and you see his character,” Lloyd said in June. “You see his seriousness. And the thing that I really saw was just his Tucson roots are real, and his love for Arizona basketball is real. And to me, when you have a good player that has that, you got to pay attention to it. We’re excited for what he can add to this team.”

Nelson was technically the second addition to the 2025-26 team. The first came in November when forward Dwayne Aristode signed out of Brewster Academy in New Hampshire.

That was just the latest stop for Aristode, who grew up in The Netherlands and played three years of club ball in Spain before coming to the United States in 2023. He also missed a full season due (2024-25) to injury, a lower leg ailment similar to what sidelined Motiejus Krivas.

“Dwayne is really talented; I think he’s maybe been forgotten about, which is crazy to say,” Lloyd said. “Dwayne is talented enough and was playing on a big enough stage ... it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for him to be McDonald’s All-American. I’m excited to see his contributions. He’s got great size, he’s got great strength, I think he has really good potential physicality wise, he’s got a good skill level. There’s nothing that tells me that he’s going to be a long term development project. I think he’s going to be ready for day one.”

Aristode—who speaks seven languages—is one of seven freshmen Arizona has added for the upcoming season. Though rated by 247Sports as a 5-star prospect, and No. 24 overall in the 2025 class, he comes to the UA with far less fanfare than fellow 5-star recruits Koa Peat and Brayden Burries and 3-star guard Bryce James, the son of NBA great LeBron James.

“I fully understand,” Aristode said of his lack of hype. “I’ve been keeping receipts. Senior year, even though I’d not been playing, I’d been under listening. I’m not stressed.”

At 6-foot-8 and 215 pounds, Aristode should be able to hold his own with Arizona’s other frontcourt players. Nelson, at 6-2 and 170, has already seen what it’s like to go up against Bradley and the Wildcats’ other guards in practice.

“I had a welcome to Arizona basketball, welcome to the Big 12 moment of being in a workout with JB and Brandon Burries,” he said. “These guys are a little bit bigger than me and JB just ran through me. I fell over. He made a layup. Everybody’s like, ‘welcome to Big 12!’”

Arizona football training camp: A proven backup in Braedyn Locke provides peace of mind at QB position

2025-08-02T04:20:00-07:00

Arizona Athletics

There is no shortage of uncertainties surrounding Arizona as it goes through training camp and maybe one given: that Noah Fifita will be the starting quarterback.

But that’s only a certainty from the outset. Another uneven season like in 2024, or even worse an injury, and the Wildcats could be in big trouble.

No one is expecting either of those scenarios to play out, but at the same time the UA has to be prepared. Just like depth is necessary on the offensive and defensive lines, in the secondary and all the skill positions, having a capable backup quarterback is a must.

“I’ll never go into a season feeling like my backup is just okay, like he may not be ready,” offensive coordinator Seth Doege said earlier this week.

Fifita played 782 of 803 offensive snaps last season, starting every game and only not finishing a few that were blowouts. That’s similar to 2022 when Jayden de Laura played all but 26 offensive snaps with Fifita coming in for mop-up duty on three occasions.

In between those seasons, though, Arizona did have to turn to its backup and it paid off. In the second half of the Pac-12 opener at Stanford, de Laura suffered an ankle injury and was replaced by a then-unproven Fifita, who calmly led the Wildcats on a game-winning touchdown drive. A week later Fifita made his first career start, against eventual national finalist, and went toe to toe with Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. a week before doing the same against future No. 1 pick Caleb Williams in a triple-overtime loss.

Fifita would go on to start the rest of the year, winning seven in a row including over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl to cap an historic 10-3 season.

And that was by a passer, who until getting thrown into the fire, had yet to prove himself in real competition. The same can’t be said about Arizona’s QB-in-waiting this time around.

Among the many transfer portal pickups this offseason was Braedyn Locke, who spent the previous two seasons at Wisconsin where he appeared in 16 games with 12 starts and threw for more than 2,700 yards with 18 TDs. In both 2023 and 2024 Locke began as the backup before stepping in for injured starters.

“This guy’s played Bama, he’s played Oregon, he’s played Penn State, he’s played at some big time moments and done well at times,” Doege said of Locke, a redshirt junior from Texas.

Despite starting the final nine games last season for the Badgers, Locke opted to transfer. But instead of go to a school where he could begin the year as a starter, or at least compete for the job, he chose a place with an established passer.

“It was just about timing,” he said. “Arizona came in at the right time for me. Coach Doege and I had just an established relationship, going back to when I was in high school, when he was at USC, that had a lot to do with it. I believe this team can be special and do special things. And I wanted to be a part of it.”

Locke, who began his career at Mississippi State but did not play in 2022, sees a lot of similarities between Doege and Mike Leach, for whom Doege played QB at Texas Tech.

“They keep it very simple,” Locke said. “They’re obsessed with winning. Leach was never obsessed with how many passing yards you would throw for, which from the stats, it might not be believable, but he was never obsessed with his stats or anything like that. He just wanted to win. Doege is very similar to that. I kind of laugh sometimes because I’ll tell Doege he’s having a Leach moment when he starts ripping our guys or whatever.”

Having been a backup, Fifita understands the role as well as the process that comes with needing to be ready. And he’s not afraid to learn a thing or two from his understudy.

“He’s been awesome in every aspect,” Fifita said. “One of the smartest guys I’ve been around. It’s been great to have somebody that you trust on the sideline. It goes well when you have two professionals.”

The combined experience and maturity of Fifita and Locke enabled Doege to go heavy on install during spring ball and early in training camp. From here on out it’s about adding new wrinkles and seeing how the two passers, as well as true freshman Sawyer Anderson, handle the changes.

In a perfect world, Fifita will become the first Arizona quarterback to start every game in consecutive seasons since Willie Tuitama in 2007-08. That would mean Locke would have to wait until 2026 at the earliest to get his first shot at the job while also remaining in position to step in at a moment’s notice like he’s already done twice before.

“The most important part of his role is being a great teammate, and he’s a great teammate,” Doege said. “You can’t find a really good quarterback that doesn’t have an ego, some sort of confident ego. Usually that confident ego makes them who they are. So Locke has an ego. There’s no doubt Locke believes in himself, and Locke knows he can play his position, but to play the role that he’s playing in, to be the two and to be ready at any given moment, you have to be a great teammate.

“If anything were to happen and he had to go in the game, I’d be very confident that we could still score points.”

Class of 2026 center Callie Hinder commits to Arizona women’s basketball

2025-08-01T19:36:00-07:00

Joe Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

Becky Burke’s first traditional class at Arizona is going to be heavy on frontcourt players. The Wildcats got a commitment from 2026 center Callie Hinder on Thursday. She joins forward Priyanka Ponnam, who committed last week.

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Hinder grew up in Australia and plays for the Australian national program, but she currently resides in Chandler, Ariz. where she plays prep ball for the PHHoenix Prep National (PHH Prep) team and travel ball for Mountain West Premier. Her family relocated to the U.S. in 2016 after her father, Russell Hinder, retired from his 13-year career in the NBL.

Hinder represented Australia for the first time in the 2025 FIBA U19 Women’s World Cup last month. She didn’t play much during the tournament, appearing in just two games for a total of 15 minutes. However, she came home with a silver medal after her team advanced to the final. They fell to the U.S. by the score of 88-76 in the gold medal game.

Hinder spent her first two years of high school at Corona del Sol, where she played both basketball and volleyball. She appeared in 54 basketball games.

She averaged nearly a double-double over those two years, ending with 10.1 points and 8.1 rebounds per game while shooting 54 percent from the floor and 52 percent from the line. She also contributed 1.2 assists, 1.2 steals, and 2.9 blocks per contest. Highlights from her time at Corona del Sol can be found on one of her HUDL profiles.

Hinder also played for Hamilton High in Chandler. While there are no stats available for her time with the Huskies, highlights are available on another HUDL profile.

She currently plays for PHH Prep, a basketball academy that also offers an online academic program for 3.5 hours per day, four days per week. She helped lead PHH National to a Canyon Athletic Association National state title in 2025.

The CAA is an organization of sports programs outside the Arizona Interscholastic Association system. It consists primarily of sports academies like PHH Prep, AZ Compass Prep, and Bella Vista Academy.

Hinder took her official visit to Arizona in early June.

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She returned to Tucson to take in a Wildcats’ practice the final week of July.

So happy I got to go down today and watch a team practice with @ArizonaWBB, some pics from my official, thank you @beckyburke11 and the whole staff, it was so much fun! #notcommitted #beardown @MtnWestPremier pic.twitter.com/Uv6nKKKzyC
— Callie Hinder (@calliehinder) July 29, 2025

Hinder reported over 20 offers, including fellow Big 12 schools Arizona State, Kansas, Texas Tech, and TCU. She whittled that down to the Wildcats and the Jayhawks. She took a visit to Lawrence in late July.

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Despite her impressive list of offers, the 6-foot-6 Hinder is not ranked by ESPN, 247, on3, or Prospects Nation.

Hinder and Ponnam give Burke two known commits for the class of 2026. The status of Spanish guard Somto Okafor, who committed to the previous staff last November, is unknown.

Burke has posted two “Bear Down, Baby” announcements on X/Twitter over the past two days, indicating that another commitment should be made public soon.

Arizona volleyball: Nylah Bibby charts her own path to her dad’s alma mater

2025-08-01T16:51:53-07:00

Arizona commit Nylah Bibby in July, 2025 | Photo courtesy of Nylah Bibby

Arizona was Nylah Bibby’s “dream school,” but not for the reasons most would assume. Her dad Mike Bibby made history with the Wildcat men’s basketball team by leading them to their only national title back in 1997, but his college achievements weren’t on her mind when she was deciding on a school. She didn’t even hear much about his time in college as she was growing up.

“He hasn’t told me a lot, but I’ve just seen that his name was very big there, and I think that’s amazing,” Nylah said. “It was so cool seeing what my dad built at Arizona, just seeing his name on the wall, his jersey.”

When it came time to decide her college path, the youngest of Mike’s four children says the atmosphere created by head volleyball coach Rita Stubbs and her players was what made the difference.

“I wanted a school that felt like home,” Nylah said. “It wasn’t very far from home, so that was a big plus. And the girls that I’ve seen, they have just such a good connection to each other. That’s what I also wanted. And Charita is just amazing. She is everything.”

Watching how Stubbs interacts with her current players made an impression on the young recruit.

“She is very honest, and I love that about a coach,” Nylah said. “She’s very close with her girls, which is also a very big one for me. That stood out to me a lot.”

Nylah attended camp at Arizona back in June. It didn’t take her long to decide that it’s where she wanted to be. While some players travel the country attending camps before making their decision, Arizona’s was the only college camp Nylah attended.

“I was supposed to (go to other camps), but Arizona was literally my dream school,” she said. “I was like, I will just go to this camp, see what happens. And then, yeah, I committed the day of the camp.”

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Nylah was able to meet fellow 2027 commit Londyn Pope, who was in a similar boat in the recruiting process. Both snatched up the Arizona offers as soon as they came.

“It was actually crazy, because we honestly had no idea (Stubbs) was going to offer us to go there,” Nylah said. “It’s like we meet one day, and the next day she’s my teammate. So crazy.”

She appreciated that Stubbs was to the point about her future.

“She just kept it straightforward with me and like, what my role was going to be, what how it was going to be when I get there,” Nylah said. “It was very calm. I can say the recruiting process with Rita was very calm.”

The volleyball recruiting timeline means that players commit before most of them know what they want to pursue outside volleyball. Nylah hasn’t given much thought to what she wants to study when she arrives in Arizona. She doesn’t consider that a drawback, though. Mostly, she’s just happy to have it over.

“It feels so amazing,” Nylah said. “It feels good. It feels like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, because the recruiting process was kind of stressful. I’m gonna say it was very stressful. So me committing, it was just amazing. I was so excited. I literally cried. It was like the biggest, best feeling ever.”

The gap between commitment and landing on campus has some advantages as far as Nylah is concerned. Now that she knows where she will go, she can focus on the things she needs to do to have an impact when she arrives.

“It just time for me to improve myself,” she said. “I have time to do that.”

While Nylah is following her dad’s footsteps to Tucson, it’s another relative who helped inspire her path in sports. Older sister Jenae Bibby was her inspiration to play volleyball.

“Everyone thought I was going to play basketball, but I really look up to my older sister,” Nylah said.

She helped Jenae practice by passing volleyballs in the backyard. She was just six at the time. The two have a large age gap, so they never got to play together, but watching her older sister was enough to kindle a lifelong passion.

“When I saw her start playing volleyball, I was like, let me try,” Nylah said. “And then I just forever fell in love.”

She also fell in love with the people surrounding her in the volleyball world.

“You make new friends and family that you will forever have in your life,” Nylah said.

She finally got into the sport seriously around the age of 11 when she started playing club volleyball. She currently plays for what is arguably the best program in the state of Arizona.

Arizona Storm has produced some of the best players to come out of the state, including former Wildcat Madi Kingdon and current Wildcat Jordan Wilson. The program currently features Tessa Larkin and Kendall Omoruyi, two of the top players in Nylah’s class. Both are on their way to the Big Ten, where most of the top college teams play.

“It just makes me want to be a better player myself and work as hard as I can to get to that point,” Nylah said. “Club is very intense. It’s crazy at Storm, but honestly, it’s so much fun.”

Playing in a club of that caliber also means being adaptable. While she is able to play outside hitter in high school despite being just 5-foot-10, she is concentrating on the back row going forward. She is already beginning that transition in club where she plays some at the defensive specialist position already.

“My role is changing when I get (to Arizona),” Nylah said. “I’m an outside right now for high school and club, but I’m gonna be more of a DS when I get there.”

The change suits her personality and skillset as well as her stature.

“Oh, I love defense,” Nylah said. “One thing about me is I will go all out. I’m not afraid of the ball, so I will just fling my body out there, and it’s just so much fun just to get those balls up that are just coming straight at you.”

There are parts of back row play that she needs to improve, though.

“I would say in serve receive, just staying down and holding, which is something I can control,” Nylah said. “I think I can get better at that.”

The adaptability that has her looking forward to a different role in college has already helped her in high school. Nylah started her high school years at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale. She transferred to Saguaro after one year and seems to have found her place.

“The other school I went to was a very big school, so there were so many kids,” Nylah said. “I transferred to Saguaro, and t’s still like a big school, but it’s...smaller, and I think that is so much better. I like being in a smaller school where I can bond with everybody.”

She settled in quickly both on the court and off. Her stats took a jump, something she puts attributes to her coach and her own mindset.

“I had so much more confidence at Saguaro than I did at my other school, and my coach was just so amazing,” Nylah said. “She believed in me, and I think that’s what pushed me to just have a better season.”

She hopes to ride that to big accomplishments over the next two years. That starts with the high school season that will get underway in a few weeks.

“We want to get a ring this year, and I think we’re capable of doing that,” she said.