'It's time for people to step up': Adia Barnes on the Kansas loss and what to expect Wednesday night

It’s been nearly a week since Arizona got gut-punched by Kansas in McKale Center.

The loss continues to sting, and it might for a while.

“I think the fight was what disappointed me,” UA coach Adia Barnes said of Thursday’s 77-50 loss to Kansas. “Just the way we didn’t respond when things were hard. And I think the most disappointing for thing for me as a coach, and I take responsibility, was the lack of execution of the game plan.”

Barnes didn’t take long to get back to work after putting her children to bed Thursday night. She watched the game film and then came up with a plan to get ready for Arizona’s next opponent.

The 20th-ranked Wildcats (7-1) will take on Texas Southern (0-8) on Wednesday night. The game is part of the Pac-12/SWAC Legacy Series. Six Pac-12 teams are playing HBCUs this season.

The Star talked to Barnes Tuesday about what went wrong, how the Wildcats plan to improve and the importance of both defense and layups. The conversation has been lightly edited:

The Kansas game was a tough loss at home for a lot of reasons. For weeks, you had been saying that all these things were happening and people didn’t see them; your players didn’t see them. For the players, was it the wake-up call that you said it was? Did they all come in like, ‘Wow, we really have to work on these things?’

A: “They were stunned. I think that they didn’t expect to lose by 27 points at home. We don’t lose like that in McKale. … I have been talking about practice is just exploited when you’re playing against better competition. I’ve been saying we need to get better defensively. I’ve been saying we need to play better post defense. I’ve been saying our guards need to contain drives and our posts need to contain drives and we have not been able to do that. I think we’re behind right now defensively. We’re getting better. But we’re behind.

“I think that it’s really hard to make shots when you’re getting punched in the face and you’re on your heels. I think it’s easy to make shots when you get some momentum, get some steals, and then you can make shots. I think everybody individually was trying to do it by themselves — like one basket for 20 points. Forcing (it) instead of playing together. And that’s not the way we’re going to play. For me, I’m going to change things up a little bit. Go back to the drawing board and figure out what group is going to be there that’s going to do what I ask and how I ask and when I ask. Because if we’re going to lose, it’s going to be in the way that they’re executing the game plan — not just stuff we’re inventing, that we don’t practice every day and we’re just doing what we want on the court. That’s my fault because the lack of discipline in our game plan is Adia Barnes’ fault. No one else’s (fault). We’re not going to have that.”

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You talked about going back to the drawing board. In the past when coming up against some adversity, you did something creative that helped you get over the hump. Are you doing something like that now? Or is it more of getting back to the basics?

A: “We’re going to play defense. Like I said, we’re going to be the best defensive team in the country. That’s not our personnel. But we’re going to have a system, we’re going to execute it and we’re going to do what the game plan says. The game plan always has a couple of counters and we’re going to execute those things or else they are not going to play. If we can’t do that, then if we’re going to lose, I’m going to lose with freshmen. Because I am going to give them experience.

“It’s time for people to step up. It’s time for Shaina (Pellington) to step up. It’s time for Cate (Reese) to step up. It’s time for Jade (Loville), Lauren (Fields), Esmery (Martinez), Helena Pueyo), Madi (Conner) — our returners to step up. Because you can’t expect that as a freshman. It’s time for freshmen to improve and get better …

“It’s not about losing a game. I don’t want to be so dramatic. We lost the game. It’s end of the world. No, it’s not. But we saw these patterns leading up to the game. We saw these weaknesses and I’ve been talking about it and I’ve been harping on it in practice. We just think that we can walk into a game and beat someone. That’s not the way it works. We need some more upperclassman leadership on the court and off the court. We need some people to step up and do their jobs and we’re not doing that right now. We can’t win games by ourselves. Just understanding that we need the team and figuring out how to make that work. …

“It doesn’t matter if I put in 10 more offenses if we can’t make a layup. Because at the end of it, you’re going to need a layup or free throw. I think those are basic things that people need to humble themselves with. And if you’re going to work on layups, then you’re going to work on layups because you can’t make them in a game. If you’ve got to work on ballhandling, you’ve got to work on ballhandling. There are things they have to get better at … I think that’s my responsibility to make them to do that and extract the best out of them and which, I haven’t done — we didn’t do that last game. I just think that we laid down and died. And I’ve never had a team do that except for last year against North Carolina (in the NCAA Tournament).”

What about the positive things?

A: “For sure. (Monday) was positive. We’re sharing the ball better and I think we’re understanding we need each other. We can’t do it all by ourselves. That was really positive this week. The players are in a good place. They’re ready to work. I think they’re realizing the things we have to work on because we were just shown that we have to, and we’re not good in those areas. I think that there were bright spots in the game. We were playing pretty good in the first half. But when you look back evaluate, it wasn’t great basketball, it was some good shots. …

“We’re going to win. And we’re going be a good team and it’s going to come together. It’s going to take time though, but we don’t have a lot of time. We have a couple of weeks (until Pac-12 play) and then just keep on improving. But we have to learn some lessons fast. I’m pretty optimistic that (Wednesday) we’re going to show an improvement in hunger, and then carry that over to the weekend. I’m going to see how we respond this weekend to play Baylor and UT-Arlington on the road after this tough loss … and just see how we respond because it’s going to tell me a lot about where we’re at. I’m excited.”