You’d think that being one of seven newcomers on a team would put everyone on even ground. When considering ties that go back to high school, that’s not always the case. New Arizona forward Jorynn Ross is learning how to navigate that as she and the rest of the Wildcats’ fresh faces integrate into the group.
“It was kind of scary because obviously there are some players that have already known each other and they’re established like, ‘Yeah, this is my friend,’” Ross said. “They know them.”
She got over that fear, realizing that those relationships weren’t meant to be exclusive.
“Everybody’s just so excited to do something and meet somebody new,” Ross said. “It’s kind of like an even middle ground.”
Relationships are important for Ross. She played soccer until middle school when her school lost its coach and didn’t have a replacement. She hoped club soccer would fill that void.
“Club soccer wasn’t that much fun,” Ross said. “I was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna take up school basketball.’ I only took it up because my other two friends were in it. I was like, okay, yeah…You put a ball in a hoop. Run up and down the court. It didn’t seem hard. So I just picked it up. And we made it to state that year. I was like, ‘Okay, this is fun.’ And I joined the AAU team. All my teammates were super nice, like the nicest people I’d ever met. I was like, they are so much better than playing with my soccer friends, I have to play. And I was getting recruited my freshman year. Obviously, what am I going back to soccer for? I’m getting it all right here.”
Building the kind of relationships that kept Ross in the game has been an early goal for the group at Arizona, too. That lays the groundwork to meet their long-term goals once the season starts.
“At the moment, I think it’s getting camaraderie because we only see each other at practice in the summer,” Ross said. “We all want to respect each other like, ‘Oh, you have a life. You actually do have other things to do.’ I think the broader human part, but also just getting better and knowing we have a team. You have players. We have a bench now, you’re not like fighting on your own.”
Having a bench is already helping the group in practice. Ross said that sometimes returners remark that the drills are relatively new to them, too. Last year, the coaches had to limit practices to avoid injuries and overwork due to the short bench. That leaves a lot of the returners in the same boat as the new players.
“I feel like we work together very well,” Ross said. “We just all kind of get along. Every day nobody really knows what to expect, because we’ll ask them, ‘Oh, so what are we doing today?’ And they’re like, ‘We don’t know. We’ve never had this many post players.’ So everybody’s like, ‘Okay, I guess we’re jumping in.’ They probably did do the drill, but they’ve never done it to the extent of, ‘Oh, we have seven other people that can do this with us.’”
Having a large group that can grow together was one of the things Arizona’s coaches used to sell Ross on the program. Head coach Adia Barnes often talks about how special the team will be when the large group of sophomores reach their senior year. Ross joins that group, which includes Jada Williams, Breya Cunningham, Skylar Jones, and Sahnya Jah. Montaya Dew has four years of eligibility due to injury, but she is also part of that class.
“They kind of told me that since I’m young and most of the people on the team already are in my class,” Ross said. “Most of us…that are sophomores already will be able to develop together. So by my senior year, I have that piece. So I don’t ever have to think, oh, everyone’s gonna leave me by my junior year. They told me individually, ‘You already have the main components. So we just have to figure out how to push those limits out.’”
Barnes has repeatedly said that she wants to focus on developing players long-term. She’s not interested in the constant flux in personnel that’s been going on in her program and across the sport the last several years. She just needs to find the players who are also interested in development. Ross appears to be one of those players.
“I was looking for development,” Ross said. “All through my recruiting process, I told every coach I want to be developed. Because I had a long season at Pepperdine. It was like a lot going on. So I just wanted a stable place to restart and finish up my last three years.”
Ross said her time at Pepperdine taught her that she was mentally stronger than she thought.
“I could have just quit and then what would have happened?” she said. “But I just kept going.”
She even has an idea of what she needs to improve on the court, especially when it comes to playing Arizona’s style of basketball.
“I would say defense,” Ross said. “Defense isn’t really my strong point. I can do regular defense, but I feel like on some aspects—like I’m not jumping the same way everybody else is. Like Arizona, they did an amazing job of getting steals last year, and getting teams to turn it over. I didn’t have that. I can get somebody to turn it over, but I want to be able to impact the same way.”
Barnes sees that kind of want in several of the new players. She said that they’re not as good defensively coming into the program, but they have the desire to be, and that’s the most important thing in teaching defense.
“I told her I want to learn defense because I just spent the whole year kind of lollygagging on defense and hoping that it worked,” Ross said. “So, now I’m like, ‘Let’s try it again.’ Because my senior year of high school, my team, there was no day we didn’t do defense. So, that was also something I was looking for. I want Adia to teach me something.”
In addition to that willingness to learn and see her own weaknesses, Barnes also values Ross’ size. She is one of only three players on the roster who are 6-foot-3 or taller. That’s more than Arizona had for the majority of last year when they were regularly forced to play posts who were only six feet tall. Beginning in mid-December, the Wildcats had only Cunningham at 6-foot-4 and Isis Beh at 6-foot-3.
“Jorynn is going to be really good, too,” Barnes said. “She’s someone who’s really hungry to learn. She’s really raw, but she has better size than we thought even before we got her. So when she came on a visit, we were like, ‘Oh, you’re taller than we thought.’ We thought she was about 6-2. She’s a legit 6-3 and strong. So I’m excited to develop her and work with her.”
The desire to learn doesn’t end on the defensive end. Ross also wants to expand her offensive game.
“Offensively, I want to be able to attack more,” Ross said. “Like instead of the high post more around the perimeter, because I’ve never been on the perimeter being a post player…I’m gonna have to learn it at some point, so I would like to develop that.”
She feels that her soccer background does help in some ways, but it still takes hard work to retain the things she needs to learn to improve.
“I do think I can last a little longer sprint-wise,” Ross said. “And footwork-wise, I feel like things do come like naturally at first, but then I started to forget them and I have to keep going over them. Recently that’s been practice—just footwork over and over again.”
She hopes that practice will help her take an even bigger step.
“I would like it to take me probably somewhere overseas,” Ross said. “I just want to see something different. I haven’t left the country and that’s why I say overseas.”
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