As a senior at Thousand Oaks High School in Ventura County, California, 20 years ago, the then-Erika Hanson thought she was walking into a dynasty.
Two, really.
Not only was she joining an Arizona softball team that had won five of the previous seven Womenโs College World Series titles, but the Wildcatsโ menโs basketball team was fresh off its first championship. She thought she was entering the Wildcatsโ golden years.
After a series of near-misses, the now-Mrs. Barnes โ she would go on to marry former Arizona golfer Andy Barnes โ would finally win her only Womenโs College World Series in 2001 as a senior.
The same year, coincidentally, in which the Wildcats last made the Final Four.
Barnes expected it to be a yearly occurrence. Like every other Arizona basketball fan, she canโt believe itโs been 20 โ and 16 โ years.
โThatโs what I thought the plan was,โ she said on Friday night in front of T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, as a mob of Wildcats fans mobbed their interim athletic director.
โBeing from Southern California, all you heard about was Arizona basketball and Arizona softball, national champs, thatโs the plan. Thatโs what you did when you went to Arizona.โ
The buzz for Wildcats basketball that next year, Barnes said, was unreal, and it trickled throughout McKale Center, like โIf Arizona basketball could do it, all of our programs had that opportunity.โ
Twenty years later, McKale is ready for a new buzz, one that only the menโs basketball team can โ and might โ provide with a March Madness run.
In a town where the summer sun beams a bit dimmer after an early exit, Tucsonโs sports fans are thirsty for another championship.
Consider: Arizona is the last Pac-12 โ heck, the last western โ school to win a national championship.
โItโs amazing that itโs been that long since a champion has come from the West,โ said Benjamin Ciranowicz, a 2010 Arizona graduate who attended the Pac-12 Tournament. โIt speaks to the nature of college basketball, the parity we see. If itโs gonna happen, nowโs as good a year as any.โ
With three Pac-12 teams with top-three seeds โ two-seeds Oregon and Arizona and No. 3-seeded UCLA โ there is a real chance, and with the Wildcats playing mostly close to home and with a comparatively kind path ahead, Arizona fans are cautiously optimistic.
โAt the beginning of the year I was very optimistic, then the injuries, (guard Allonzo) Trierโs suspension โ you had to kind of reset where the bar was,โ Ciranowicz said. โI was pleasantly surprised, and I think (coach Sean) Miller has done an amazing job to get this team a share of the Pac-12 title. If thereโs a run in March, it just depends on what matchups we get, health and if we get Lauri Markkanenโs shot back.โ
For long-suffering Arizona fans, the championship drought has been even more difficult to swallow with so many close calls. Wisconsinโs Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker will haunt them for a lifetime after keeping the Wildcats from a Final Four in both 2014 and 2015.
โIโd say weโre overdue for a championship, for a Final Four,โ UA fan Noe Fraijo said. โI canโt believe how long itโs been. I hope the team comes together, Markkanen comes back to what he was like. Weโre on the verge of peaking. Hopefully that happens.โ
The common sentiment among most UA fans is simple: How has it been two decades?
โI canโt believe itโs been 20 years,โ Barnes said. โItโs gone by incredibly fast. But I think Sean Miller has picked up what we did in โ97, and thereโs the same magic and chemistry that there was back then.โ
