Former Arizona guard Skylar Jones will play less than five hours from her hometown of Chicago next season. The sophomore announced that she is transferring to Louisville. The announcement was made via her social media on Friday morning.
Jones was Arizona’s most athletic perimeter player last season. Once she got over her tendency to pick up charges, she kept opponents off-balance by slashing and hitting a good percentage of her 3-point shots.
Jones averaged 10.7 points per game last season, an increase over the 7.2 she scored as a freshman. She improved her overall shooting from 46.5 percent to 49.2 percent.
Her improvement from the 3-point line was even more dramatic. As a freshman, she was effective from outside just 27.7 percent of the time. That jumped to 35.1 percent as a sophomore. That was fourth on the team behind Katarina Knežević, Lauryn Swann, and Isis Beh.
Jones was also good for 2.7 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 1.6 assists over her 63 games in an Arizona uniform. On the downside, she was also responsible for 1.9 turnovers per game in two years. That number increased from 1.4 per game as a freshman to 2.3 as a sophomore despite playing almost exactly the same number of minutes.
The Cardinals went 22-11 last season and earned a seven seed in the NCAA Tournament. They advanced to the round of 32 where they lost to TCU in Fort Worth, Tex.
Their 22 wins were a “down” year for the Cardinals. They have won at least 20 games every season since 2010-11 when they went 22-13. Their last losing record was 14-18 in 2009-10. It stands as their only losing record since the 1993-94 season.
UL has lost three players to the portal, including Gilbert Arenas’ daughter Izela Arenas.