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You’d think she might be ready to go. And she was. But UA coach Becky Burke wasn’t quite sure.

So, saying she had been unhappy with Perdue’s effort in Arizona’s exhibition loss to West Texas A&M on Oct. 23, Burke kept Perdue out of the starting lineup for UA’s 62-59 win Thursday.

“I needed her to get that chip on her shoulder back,� Burke said.

Perdue stayed on the bench for exactly 130 seconds before joining her new teammates on the floor.

That proved enough. Perdue’s presence didn’t stop the Wildcats from slumping to an 8-3 deficit in the early moments Thursday, and she missed her first three shots, but her intensity was visible immediately.

Perdue charged from the bench into the Wildcats’ huddle, spoke a few animated words, and by the end of the first quarter drove inside for a layup to give Arizona a 14-12 lead.

Then she hit her stride, scoring seven of Arizona’s nine points in the second quarter and hitting 3s on two straight UA possessions in the third quarter, one to tie the game at 31 and one to put the Wildcats up 34-31.

“I take a challenge well,� Perdue said. “I’m a competitive person.�

Perdue later drove in for a layup to give UA a 46-38 lead late in the third, with UA taking a seven-point lead into the third quarter.

She finished hitting 3 of 9 3-pointers, made both free throws she took, pulled down three rebounds and blocked UC Riverside’s final shot. All that after going just 1-for-9 from 3-point range in that West Texas A&M exhibition that Burke wasn’t happy with.

“I literally have challenged Micky since the day she set foot on this campus,� Burke said. “This is a totally different style of play. I’m a totally different coach. She’s playing with people she’s never met before. And after our first exhibition game, I wasn’t happy with her effort, and I told her that straight up. We had a really hard conversation in my office.�

Perdue embraced it.

“I came here to be challenged. That was what I told coach Burke when I was on the phone getting recruited,� Perdue said. “I told her in her office the other day, ‘You want to challenge me? I like that.’ I’m a competitive person and I’m never going to change the way I play. I’m going to make sure I do whatever’s asked of me, and do it to the best of my ability.�

Their conversation wound up helping both sides. Perdue received the push she wanted, while Burke received a win in her first game as the Wildcats’ new coach, thanks in part to the 17 points and overall effort Perdue put in.

“I think players can respond two ways,� Burke said. “They can get pouty, they can just kind of crawl in a hole, or get resentful towards you as the head coach for making decisions that you make, or they can come in and just get ultra competitive, and just play even harder and respond. And that is what she has done.�

Perdue could have easily been the resentful type. Not only did she dominate the Horizon League last season, but Perdue was viewed as one of Burke’s top recruits and among UA’s three representatives chosen to showcase the Wildcats at Big 12 media day in Kansas City last month.

She was even chosen to battle UA men’s player Anthony Dell’Orso in a Red-Blue Showcase 3-point shooting contest, and lost by just one shot.

But her climb uphill in college basketball has still been a climb. She remembers that part, too.

“I’m never complacent,� Perdue said. “I’ve had a journey. Being the Player of the Year didn’t just come easy. So I know that I’m going to fight for my spot, whether I’m starting or not. I’m going to do what I have to do.�

It was only one game, though, for Perdue and the Wildcats, and there’s plenty of room for improvement. That much was clear Thursday: The Wildcats shot 46.0% from the field and scored 18 points off 23 Riverside turnovers, but were outrebounded 33-24 and nearly gave the game away in the final minute.

The Highlanders hit three 3-pointers from there to help tie it at 58 with 1:58 left, while the Wildcats committed two turnovers in the final 34 seconds to give UC Riverside chances to win or send the game into overtime.

Noelani Cornfield hit a jumper to give UA a 60-58 lead with 1:34 left, but committed a turnover on the Wildcats’ next possession that led to a free throw cutting UA’s lead to 60-59.

With 10 seconds remaining, UC Riverside’s Bria Shine stole the ball from Arizona freshman forward Daniah Trammel to give the Highlanders a chance to win it.

But, in a more subtle way, Perdue and fellow veteran transfer Sumayah Sugapong helped the Wildcats push through it.

“I’m not gonna lie, my toes were curling in my shoes,� said Trammell, who had 13 points in her college debut. “But I have a lot of faith and trust in my teammates. I had Micky and Sumayah on the floor, and being the leaders that they are, they just told me, ‘stay poised.’ …

“Being on the floor with them, people who know the game — eat, sleep, breathe the game — I felt comfortable and that was the reason why I was successful this night was because of them.

In the final seconds, Riverside’s Maya Chocano missed a shot inside and fouled Sugapong, who rebounded the miss. Sugapong then hit both free throws to give UA a 62-59 lead with 1.6 seconds left and Perdue blocked a final Riverside shot from Chocano as time expired.

“We really know how to make it interesting, so I need to correct and fix some things down the stretch and make sure we don’t make it quite as interesting as we did,� Burke said. “But at the end of the day, they found a way to win.

“It’s so hard to win college basketball games at any level, and I think you’ve just seen improvement from exhibition 1 to exhibition 2 to Game 1, and that’s what we look for as coaches. We don’t expect them to be a finished product right now, but I’ve seen improvement every single night.�