Celebrating Pac-12 women's hoops: Arizona's Sam Thomas on final year of league she starred in

The Pac-12 has stood out as one of the best women’s basketball leagues in the nation over the last two decades. This being the league’s final season, the Star is sharing each month Pac-12-centered stories of former Arizona players, as well as former and current league coaches. First up: three-time All-Pac-12 defensive selection and heart-and-soul of the Wildcats for five seasons, Sam Thomas.

Thomas played for the Wildcats from 2017-18 through the 2021-22 season. Some of her accomplishments include starting all five years, WNIT Champion, a two-time CoSIDA First Team Academic All-American, 2022 Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, Elite 90 Award and three-time Pac-12 all-defensive team.

Personal Pac-12 highlight: “Obviously — I say this one all the time — beating Stanford, that was a highlight of my career, just being at home in front of all those fans that was amazing. Then, freshman year seeing Oregon’s court for the first time, because you always see it on TV and it’s just like, ‘How do people play on that?’ and then actually going there and being able to see it. It was great. Pac-12 is a great conference, and I’ve loved being a part of it.

Best of the West: “There were so many good players. I think my freshmen year (the conference) was just stacked. Dijonai Carrington was at Stanford, Oregon State had Marie Gulich, who I unfortunately had to guard – a great test for me. Kristine Anigwe at Cal – just a bunch of great players.

Then I would say Sabrina (Ionescu) was probably the hardest one to play against because she makes everybody around her better. She’s not the type to really break you down one-on-one. It was more just reads and she always made the right read. It just felt like it was impossible to guard her because somebody else is always going to be open. She was surrounded by great players — Satou (Sabally), Ruthie (Hebard). That Oregon team was the hardest team I ever played against.

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<&rdpStrong>Those “finally did it” moments:</&rdpStrong> “My ‘oh, I finally got her’ moment would probably be the Hull sisters (Lexie and Lacie at Stanford). I think they may have been a year younger than me. They just kept like beating us, of course every single time. It was pretty tough, and I don’t like when people younger than me beat me. I don’t know why it’s just a thing that I have. Once we beat them at home that was a good moment.

“Team-wise, I would say UCLA has just been stacked every single year with great players. They’re coached well (by Cori Close) and just playing at UCLA so hard in general. I remember going into triple overtime with them at our place, and we ended up losing, but it was just such a tough game. I remember I missed two free throws. I think it was in a regulation that we could have won the game. I fouled out in the third overtime, so it was just a tough game.

“I still have a Snapchat video of me crying after the game because I was so mad. Unfortunately, we didn’t get them back that year. But the next year they came to our place and I don’t know what everyone ate for breakfast that morning. But we just were hitting everything, our defense was on point. I think we won by like 30 (92-66). And we were up by 30 the entire game like it was a really smooth, comfortable game for us. That was kind of my ‘finally did it’ moment.”

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