Arizona's road-weary women's hoops ready for holiday tourney

Travel is never easy these days.

Especially not for the Arizona women’s basketball team.

In the first three weeks of the 2024-25 season, the Wildcats have played on the road three times — and that doesn’t count this week’s Acrisure Holiday Invitational at the Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, California.

The Wildcats’ schedule has looked like this: a return commercial flight from San Diego on Sunday, Nov. 10. Two days later, a home game against UNLV on Nov. 12. Early Friday morning, Arizona flew commercial to Chicago for a game at 2 p.m. Central time on Saturday, Nov. 16. The Wildcats’ return flight was later that night, arriving in Tucson after 2 a.m. Sunday.

Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 19, the Wildcats boarded a bus to drive to Flagstaff to play NAU, and after the loss Wednesday night, they drove back to Tucson, arriving after 2 a.m. Thursday morning

On Saturday night, Nov. 23, the Wildcats played Grambling State in McKale Center, then the next afternoon, they boarded another bus and drove another six hours to Palm Springs for this week’s games on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.

And finally, after Wednesday’s game — whether the Wildcats play in the championship game, starting at 2:30 p.m. or the third-place game at noon — they will board the bus again to come home.

Yes, these players are young, but even 18- to 24-year-olds get tired. In between all of that travel, they study for school, do recovery, watch film and practice.

It’s a lot.

So, when six-year senior forward Isis Beh tells you that on trips — whether it’s on a flight or on a bus — they sleep — no games or anything else — just sleep, you understand why.

“I like the bus better than a plane,” Beh said. “We are all in our own little bubble. (On a bus) we get two seats to ourselves. We’re in our own space; we don’t really talk on the bus.”

And that’s why when the Wildcats posted one of their most recent videos for this road trip to Palm Springs and were asked, ‘What are three things you have to have on a trip?’ Most responded with a blanket, and Jada Williams added, “my Spiderman pillow.”

Arizona coach Adia Barnes admitted they’ve “had a tough couple of weeks.”

And it doesn’t ease up for a while. Although, after the game on Wednesday, some of the player’s parents will be in Palm Springs and Barnes said that the Wildcats don’t have to be back in Tucson for practice until Friday. They are taking Thanksgiving off, then it’s back to work.

Barnes added that once the team arrived in Palm Springs, there wasn’t a lot of free time — even for the coaches and staff.

“This morning as a staff, at 7:45 a.m., Chris Allen (UA’s performance coach), put us all through the Chris Allen workout and that’s brutal,” Barnes said. “We all got killed. When you go down (to the gym) you hope that Chris isn’t down there or else you are like, ‘Oh, dang.’ It’s our own F45 class.

“Then, we had recovery at 9 a.m. (for the players), breakfast at 9:30 a.m. They left here at 10 a.m. (to go) rest. Some will walk around. Some will do homework. A lot of them sleep. And then they start taping at 11:50 a.m. – so we don’t really have tons of time – 12:15 p.m. we have film and prep before practice, and then we’ll go over for practice from like 1 to 3 p.m. We stretch, recover, all that. They will have another two hours. Then we’ll have dinner and recovery. They don’t have the whole day free. There’s time but it’s busy.”

That was just Monday.

There’s more to come on Tuesday and Wednesday.

After the Wildcats play Vanderbilt on Tuesday afternoon, they have to prepare for the next game on Wednesday against either Cal or Michigan State. For the coaches, assistant Anthony Turner has scouted Cal, while assistant Bett Shelby is on Michigan State. Then, both coaches will watch the early matchup on Tuesday between these two teams to add anything new that comes up.

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Right after Arizona’s game that day, they start prepping for Wednesday with film and a walkthrough.

Barnes said that in these types of tournaments, depth really isn’t a factor.

“I think for a young team, playing good in the first game, regardless of results, is really important, because if you have a really bad first game, it’s hard to bounce back to the next game,” Barnes said. “They’re good teams, and you don’t want to go into these tournaments not winning a game.”

UConn connections

Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph and Barnes played basketball in the same era. Barnes, of course, for Arizona while Ralph was at UConn.

In 1998, in the NCAA Tournament, the two teams met in the Sweet 16, with UConn coming out on top, 74-57.

The story goes that Ralph was out with an injury — a torn ACL — and in preparation for this tournament game, modeled Barnes’ style of play for her teammates.

These days, Barnes and Ralph are friends — except when they play each other, like on Tuesday.

“I like seeing former players in our positions and having success, because then there’s room for more of us, and there aren’t enough of us,” Barnes said.

Of course, everyone remembers the other time UConn and Arizona played — in the 2021 Final Four. This time, the Wildcats came out on top. Barnes was coaching the Wildcats this time around, while Ralph was an assistant at UConn.

The two faced off once as head coaches — Barnes at Arizona and Ralph at Vanderbilt. This was the following fall at another Thanksgiving tournament — the 2022 Paradise Jam — when former UA guard Shaina Pellington drove into traffic and made a last-second layup for the win.

Barnes and Ralph have also bonded over having two young children and being in the coaching arena and have that UConn connection. Ralph played with two of Barnes’ close friends at UConn – Sue Bird and Morgan Valley. Barnes and Bird were teammates on the 2004 WNBA championship Seattle Storm.

Valley, who was an assistant coach at Arizona during the WNIT championship run and now back at her alma mater as an assistant at UConn, sees a little similarity between Barnes and Ralph as coaches.

“Their competitiveness, their drive and determination and even their vision – style is very similar,” Valley said. “Shea is very defensive; Adia is very defensive. They have the same kind of mentality. They both want to be great and they just have this unique ability to make people better.”

Pac-12 revisited

If Arizona plays Michigan State on Wednesday in the championship game, it might look a little familiar. Last year, UA beat Michigan State on the men’s side of the bracket on the same court in the championship game of this tournament. At the time it was the most-watched college basketball game ever broadcast on FOX and the most-watched regular-season game on any network since 2008.

The Wildcats would also play two former Pac-12 players in former Arizona State star Jaddan Simmons and former Oregon standout Grace VanSlooten.

If the Wildcats play Cal, it would be against a former Pac-12 foe.

“Cal is a lot better, so we respect them,” Barnes said. “That was a dog fight in in Berkeley last year, and so we know that they’re good. … I think the advantage of playing Cal is a familiarity, and I’ve been friends with (Cal coach) Charmin (Smith) for many years. We actually were teammates in the WNBA. It’s kind of full circle. It’s fun that you’re playing against your former teammates and friends and colleagues.”