Arizona women’s basketball takes on Devils, lands ASU Jade Loville transfer

The old saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. For Arizona women’s basketball, this week is if you can’t contain them, make them join you. That’s what Adia Barnes and his staff did it by convincing the former ASU and the Boise State wing Jade Loville to go down I-10 and join the Wildcats.
The commitment would appear to round out Arizona’s roster for next season. In April, Barnes said she hoped to add three transfers to her list of five returning and four freshmen. May 1, assistant coach Ashley Davis tweeted three sets of “Bear Down” emoji, implying there were three engagements.
And today was a good day!!
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— Coach Davis (@UofAcoachD) May 2, 2022
Since that tweet, Arizona announced transfer commitments from Oklahoma State Laurent Fields and transfer to West Virginia Esmery Martinez. The third engagement was rumored to be Loville, but it was not made official at the same time as the other two. Loville and the Wildcats have now made it official.
Loville scored 27 points against Arizona when ASU upset the then No. 1. 6 Wildcats 81-77 at Desert Financial Arena on Feb. 11. Two days later, she scored eight points on 3-of-7 shooting as UA took the four-point victory at the McKale Center.
The 5-foot-11 winger was the Pac-12’s second-leading scorer last season with 16.6 points per game. She shot 41.7 percent from the floor and 43.3 percent from 3 and averaged 2.7 rebounds per game for ASU.
Loville improved parts of his game that weren’t strong before moving to ASU. She made 39 of 90 3-pointers last season. It was a dramatic improvement over the first three years of her career when she went 26-126 in 87 games at Boise State. During her year as Sun Devil, she hit at least 50% of her outside shots in 11 games.
Prior to landing in Tempe, Loville averaged 17.1 PPG and 3.2 RPG in 31.2 MPG for the Broncos as a junior. In three years in Boise, it averaged 8.9 PPG and 2.2 RPG in 18.4 MPG.
Loville has a season to play for Arizona.