The Arizona womenโs basketball team won its first game in Pac-12 play Friday night against Colorado, yet a bigger win may have come off the court this week.
For the first time in program history, UA has a McDonaldโs All-American: Cate Reese.
Reese is a 2018 signee from Cypress Woods, Texas, and will be a freshman next season.
For UA coach Adia Barnes this is another milestone as she rebuilds the program.
Reese, a five-star recruit, is rated as the fourth-best post player in the country by ESPN and the No. 14 prospect in the nation โ the highest ranked prospect the UA has ever signed. She is one of five top players in Barnesโ 2018 class, which is ranked No. 4 in the country.
โCate is not the last McDonaldโs All-American for this program,โ Barnes said. โI am really excited. For her to come here is so huge. Cate is a complete total package kid. She is fierce and relentless and plays like it is her last game. She is the right person to build our program around. Cate will raise the level of the program, not just with her play, but with mentality. For us to land a player like that says a lot for our program.โ
Stanford and Cal are the only other Pac-12 teams with future players named McDonaldโs All-Americans.
For Reese, it was a dream come true. She heard the news while at home watching TV with her mom and dad and Face Timing with her sister, Ali, a freshman walk-on for UA.
โIt was weird, it was snowing in Texas and we had a snow day,โ Reese said. โI was always dreaming of this. It was a goal. I kind of thought Iโd make it but had a few doubts. When they said my name, I was so excited that the committee thought of me as a Top 24 player in the country. Both Ali and Sam Thomas who was with her (Face Timing) were very happy for me.
โMy goal is not just to be on the team; I want to prove why I was chosen. I am working hard to compete and stand out. I think the rebound record for the McDonaldโs game is 10 and I want to beat that.โ
Reese is also on the midseason Naismith award list. Again, she is one of three who will be attending Pac-12 schools next year. Stanford and USC are the other schools with a midseason Naismith player coming in
This season, the 6-foot-3-inch forward is averaging 29.3 points and 14.9 rebounds per game. At the beginning of January, Reese snagged the CyWoods scoring record with 2,234 points, passing Erica Ogwumike โ sister of WNBA stars Chiney and Nneka, who both played at Stanford. Earlier in the season she claimed the career rebounds record and now has 1,384.
To make up for the missed game due to the snow this week, Reeseโs team had to play back-to-back games Thursday and Friday.
She notched 32 points and 11 rebounds on Friday, a day after finishing with โonlyโ 24 points and 11 rebounds โ something she was not happy about. So, Saturday morning was spent working on her shot with her dad and her coach.
โI am working on my threes today,โ Reese said. โI want to continue to improve and work towards playing at the D1 level. Teams know I am stronger on my right side, so they try to take that away. I need to do a second move to get around that. So, I am working on going to my left.โ
When Barnes heard that Reese wasnโt happy with her performance, it reminded her of another McDonaldโs All-American she recruited at Washington: Kelsey Plum.
โ(While) she and Kelsey play different positions, there are similarities,โ Barnes said. โBoth are special. They are fighters, they will elbow you for position in a heartbeat.
โKelsey is a gym rat. She loves the game and worked more than anyone else in college. Cate will be like that and will start to change the culture here. Itโs contagious, others will see how she works and say, โIโll do it; everyone else is doing it.โ
โCate can play the whole game and doesnโt want to come out. She has toughness and grit and wants to be the best. She loves it. The game is important to her. Kids like her are hard to find. You canโt teach that. Those are kids I want to coach. I want kids who are innately motivated. If you know of any others, let me know.โ
