Taking Stock: How Arizona women’s basketball is looking under coach Adia Barnes

The offseason is here, with all of Arizona’s sports done for 2023-24 season and the 2024-25 campaigns still a little ways away.

That makes this a great time to step back and see how all of the Wildcats’ programs are doing, especially with the impending move to the Big 12 Conference.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at each of the UA’s men’s and women’s athletic programs to see what shape they’re in and what prospects they have for the near future. We’ll break down each team and evaluate how it is performing under its current coaching staff, looking at the state of the program before he/she arrived and comparing it to now while also looking at the upcoming debut in the Big 12 and beyond.

Next up is Arizona women’s basketball under head coach Adia Barnes.

How it looked before

Arizona had a good stretch in the late 1990s and right after the millennium under former head coach Joan Bonvicini. After the death of Shawntinice Polk, the program dropped off quickly for understandable reasons. Bringing in Niya Butts, a protege of the late Pat Summitt, did nothing to halt that.

When Barnes took over in 2016, gameday attendance had dwindled to about one thousand per game, winning wasn’t in the cards, and locker room culture was bad. She said that during her first year, she had players physically fighting each other and thinking it was normal behavior.

Barnes went about building from the ground up. She got rid of players who were bad for the culture even though it meant winning just six games her second season. She brought in defensive-minded players who fit the system she wanted to run.

Most importantly, Barnes got an overlooked star in Aari McDonald to transfer from Washington. She also brought in Arizona’s first female McDonald’s All-American Cate Reese.

It was a dramatic turnaround. Arizona won the WNIT during McDonald and Reese’s first season. During their second, COVID-19 hit and the NCAA Tournament was canceled, but the next season McDonald and her teammates made a run all the way to the NCAA championship game where they lost by one point to Stanford.

Where things stand now

Arizona has made the postseason every year since 2018-19. Only the first postseason appearance was in anything but the NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats are 14-4 in the postseason under Barnes, including 8-4 in the Big Dance.

Since Barnes took over, the Wildcats have won at least one game in every postseason tournament they have competed in and have only lost to a team with a worse seed once. That defeat came in 2022 when fourth-seeded Arizona lost to fifth-seeded North Carolina in McKale Center in the round of 32.

Barnes enters her ninth season as a head coach with a 150-100 record overall and a 68-73 record in the Pac-12, which has been one of the top conferences in women’s basketball throughout her tenure. She had a string of five straight seasons with at least 21 wins come to an end last year when the team went 18-16. The Wildcats have had a winning record in the Pac-12 in four of her eight seasons and an overall winning record the last six years.

The Wildcats have also developed a devoted fan base during Barnes’ tenure. The program has led the Pac-12 in both overall and average attendance for the past three years. The two years before that, it trailed only Oregon and Oregon State.

Its average attendance has gone from 1,386 the year before she arrived to 7,333 per game last season. It reached its peak in 2021-22 with 7,822. It has gone from ranked No. 110 in the nation to No. 11 last year. Its highest rank was No. 6 in 2021-22.

On the downside, the Wildcats have suffered considerable attrition via the transfer portal over the past few years. In the early part of Barnes’ tenure, Arizona saw transfers out. However, they were generally looking for more playing time and went to smaller programs. After the UA program became more successful on the court, conflict off the court grew.

The issues started in 2021-22, the year after McDonald left for the WNBA. Barnes brought in three transfers. Two of them did not fit either on the court or off, and it stirred conflict. After Arizona lost to North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament, Barnes said that there would be changes to the roster before the following season. There were.

When the season was over, Koi Love transferred again—going to USC where she ended up playing little in 2022-23 before being dropped from the roster before the 2023-24 season. In addition to Love, Anna Gret Asi, Semaj Smith, Gisela Sanchez, Derin Erdogan, and Aaronette Vonleh all transferred. Taylor Chavez didn’t transfer, but she opted not to use her fifth year of eligibility. Although Barnes later said that Erdogan was a player she deeply regretted losing, at the time she said that most of the others who transferred were gone because she wanted them gone.

Of the group who transferred that year, only Vonleh and Erdogan had immediate success at their new schools. Vonleh was the only one who went to an equivalent program and prospered immediately.

Things didn’t get better in 2022-23. The Wildcats had issues in the locker room and a staff that didn’t please Barnes. She fired most of the coaching and support staff after the season, feeling that they were encouraging some of the drama and undermining her. She also felt the work ethic was not strong among several members and that she should have just fired some of them before the season instead of bringing in Bett Shelby in a mentorship role. She regretted not hiring Shelby as an on-court assistant immediately.

“When (Shelby) came in her first year, not as a coach, a lot of that was to teach Erin (Grant) and Ashley (Davis) how to recruit efficiently and do their jobs a little bit better,” Barnes said. “So I brought her in as more of a mentor. I saw that Ashley didn’t ever recruit at a high level, and I wanted her to learn that, but it didn’t really work like that when I did it. I think that because Bett was known as one of the best recruiters in the country, I think bringing her in caused a lot of insecurities and I think it caused a little bit of a power struggle. So that was not the brightest move. So that caused a little bit of internal conflict, and so that’s one reason I made the changes. But, at the end of the day, if we were doing our jobs at a level we were supposed to, there wouldn’t have been a need to bring Bett in.”

Of those who left the staff after the year, only McDonald left on good terms and by her own choosing. Barnes encouraged her to give international play another shot while she could, saying that the coach and the program would always be there when McDonald was ready to return to the coaching world.

Most of the staff was simply fired.

“Video coordinator, got rid of immediately,” Barnes said last February. “And then Erin, Ashley, got rid of. And then it was Director of Operations, got rid of. I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough.”

Barnes moved Shelby into an on-court coaching role, hired Anthony Turner, moved another staff member into a new role, and hired new people to fill the rest. The group has stayed intact after the first year. She felt that she should have made most of those moves sooner and her decision not to do so cost her some players.

The program lost five transfers after the season. This time, it included starters or players who had a strong likelihood of starting in 2023-24.

In the end, she saw forward Lauren Ware, guard Paris Clark, guard Madi Conner, forward Lemyah Hylton, and guard Lauren Fields all transfer. Ware and Fields started and contributed on NCAA Tournament teams in 2023-24. Clark, Conner, and Hylton all went to teams that missed the NCAAs.

The turmoil didn’t stop there. Even before the fall practice started, Barnes had to dismiss transfer Fanta Gassama from the team. She wasn’t the last one who would leave—either by her own choice or the coaches’ choice.

The two freshmen who returned to the program after the 2022-23 season did not make it through their sophomore years. Conflict behind the scenes and on the court led to the departures of both Maya Nnaji and Kailyn Gilbert. Gilbert has since transferred to LSU.

The players who stuck together formed a strong bond, though. Arizona returned all four freshmen from last year’s No. 3 class. Barnes and her staff also added the No. 40 player from that class in South Carolina transfer Sahnya Jah. She has a talented young core who she thinks can lead the program to great things if they stick together.

That will be a challenge for everyone, though. Over 1,300 players entered the portal this season. With approximately 360 teams in Division I, each program lost an average of 3.6 players to the portal. Arizona was slightly under the average with three players transferring to other programs.

What life in the Big 12 should look like

The competitive landscape should get much easier for Arizona next season. Gone are two games every year against Stanford, UCLA, Oregon State, and USC. The Big 12 also lost Texas and Oklahoma. The Longhorns were a No. 1 seed in last year’s tournament and the Sooners got a No. 5 seed.

The league will still have strong competition, though. It sent half its members to the tournament last year, including five returning teams: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, and West Virginia.

Kansas State will battle for the top of the league. Despite losing star center Ayoka Lee to injury last year, the Wildcats from Manhattan got a No. 4 seed and the right to host the opening rounds of the tourney. They lost to fifth-seeded Colorado in the round of 32.

KSU gets Lee back for the upcoming season. Arizona will also see former Wildcat Gisela Sanchez, who went to Manhattan two years ago but had to sit out with an injury her first season there.

Baylor should also be right there at the top. BU hasn’t won a title under current head coach Nicki Collen, but it has advanced to at least the round of 32 in each of the three seasons since she replaced Kim Mulkey.

Last year, the Bears made the Sweet 16. Collen also brought in Vonleh for next season. The former Wildcat center transferred again after two years at Colorado.

TCU was a No. 3 seed in the WBIT last season, but Mark Campbell has added a lot of talent out of the portal again this year. His haul included three former Pac-12 players last season. This year, he got Hailey Van Lith, who is also at her third school. She has been one of the portal’s biggest fish for two straight years.

Iowa State is always a solid program. The Cyclones were a No. 7 seed last year. They bring back star center Audi Crooks, who should keep the program on a strong trajectory.

West Virginia improved despite having its third coach in as many years. The Mountaineers were a No. 8 seed just one year after getting knocked out in the round of 64 by Arizona. Their task will be maintaining the course.

Kansas had four fifth-year seniors on its NCAA tournament team last year. That group included three of the Jayhawks’ five top scorers. The most important one was probably Taiyanna Jackson, who dominated when KU came to Tucson in 2022-23.

They return leading scorer S’Mya Nichols and fifth-highest scorer Wyvette Mayberry. KU has a lot of holes to fill in their starting lineup, though.

Of the four teams moving to the league from the Pac-12, only ASU has not been competitive in recent years. Utah and Colorado have significant holes to fill, though. The Utes lost Alissa Pili to the WNBA. Buffaloes’ stars Jaylyn Sherrod and Quay Miller exhausted their eligibility last year. Tameiya Sadler and Vonleh both transferred for the second time in their careers.

The prospects look good for a young UA team to compete for a position in the top five of the 16-team league. There are a lot of moving parts and new players to integrate, but that is true of almost every team in the league. Unlike most years in the Pac-12, the Wildcats will not be walking into the conference season with little chance of beating the top teams.

Being in the Big 12 will also improve the Wildcats’ travel schedule. Gone are the days when they were sent to the furthest reaches of the conference for two straight weeks. Once conference play starts, they should have one home and one away game most weeks. They should also have more time between games, with many weeks following a Wednesday-Saturday schedule.

One big question

Can the Wildcats get past the turmoil of the past three seasons and form a cohesive group that leads them into the future?

Arizona’s transfer situation was not unique. For the past few seasons, many programs have faced a churn of players due to the lack of rails on the transfer situation. The team ultimately lost four players to transfer or separation in 2023-24, but it seemed to perform better and be more cohesive on the floor after three of those players were no longer on the court.

Still, it’s difficult for a team to grow and get the most out its personnel if there are constant dramatic changes on the roster. In this day and age, it’s unlikely that many teams will keep all of their players every year. However, if the Wildcats are going to form a committed and effective unit, those changes need to slow down. More importantly, whatever has caused them behind the scenes needs to stop.