You know that cliché about “throwing the records out” in a rivalry game?
When it comes to the 2025-26 Arizona women’s basketball team, you can take it a step further: Throw the Wildcats’ season-long record out.
Michael Lev is a senior writer/columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson.com and The Wildcaster.
Drag it into the recycling bin. Shred it. Incinerate it.
It means next to nothing and portends absolutely nothing about the future of the program under first-year head coach Becky Burke.
Arizona is 1-8 in Big 12 play halfway through the conference schedule. The back half begins Sunday afternoon vs. Oklahoma State.
Nothing that’s happened so far has shaken my confidence in Burke. I’m certain she will — eventually — turn the ship around.
It might feel bleak at the moment, with the Wildcats riding a five-game losing streak and trending toward a bottom-four seed in the Big 12 Tournament. This is precisely when patience is required and perspective is imperative.
Arizona women’s basketball isn’t a flip; it’s a complete rebuild. The program was torn down to the studs in spring. Burke had to start from scratch. Sleeves up, indeed.
Arizona coach Becky Burke questions a non-call on an inbounds pass to end the third quarter against UCF, Jan. 10, 2026, at McKale Center.
Suboptimal timing
It's not unprecedented to have a completely new team nowadays; Burke has first-hand experience with that sort of thing, having literally started a program from scratch at Embry-Riddle in Prescott.
It was doubly challenging in this situation because of the timing of Burke’s hiring. She was announced as Adia Barnes’ successor on April 9 — two weeks after the transfer portal opened. It might as well have been two years.
The most important days in any portal window are the first few; Burke and her new staff — which she was still in the process of assembling — missed them entirely. That put Arizona at an immediate disadvantage for 2025-26.
Contrast that with what transpired at ASU, which also has a first-year coach and is faring much better — 18-4 overall, 5-4 in the Big 12 after Wednesday’s 68-61 victory over Arizona in Tempe.
ASU guard Gabby Elliott (0) looks to the basket against Arizona on Jan. 28, 2026, at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe.
Molly Miller was hired on March 22 — three days before the portal opened. The Sun Devils’ leading scorer, Gabby Elliott, committed on April 7 — two days before Burke was hired. The five players who play the most minutes for ASU were on board by April 23. Burke started adding players almost immediately, but Miller had a 2½-week head start.
If you want to blame Desireé Reed-Francois and the UA administration for not resolving Barnes’ contractual situation in a timely enough manner, that’s fair. About two weeks passed between Arizona’s final game of the 2024-25 season and Barnes’ departure for SMU.
Burke had nothing to do with that. She was hired relatively late in the cycle — not unlike UA football coach Brent Brennan in 2024 — and has suffered the consequences. It hasn’t stopped her from pouring every ounce of her being into this season’s team.
It's an undersized but scrappy squad that’s a reflection of its head coach: The Wildcats go hard all the time. That’s something I’m always looking for when it comes to establishing a culture. So far, all signs are positive in that regard.
Arizona probably would have won a couple of more games — UCF for sure; Kansas or ASU possibly — if leading scorer Mickayla Perdue hadn’t suffered a wrist injury that has sidelined her indefinitely. The Wildcats also lost a potential rotation big when they parted ways with 6-foot-2 forward Freddie Wallace in late November for undisclosed reasons.
On Wednesday, Arizona didn’t have leading rebounder Tanyuel Welch either. Welch has been inconsistent during her first season as a Wildcat, but she’s easily Arizona’s most athletic player and probably its most effective on-ball defender.
Recognizing whom she had — and didn’t have — against ASU, Burke came away from that game pleased with what transpired. We’ve seen her furious after wins and relatively satisfied after losses. It’s all about effort and execution of the game plan. If her team checks those boxes — regardless of the outcome — Burke has no complaints.
Arizona coach Becky Burke disagrees with a referee’s call in the second half during a game at McKale Center on Dec. 10, 2025. Arizona defeated Eastern Kentucky 87-83.
“I am so proud of our team,” she said Wednesday. “Proud of effort, proud of our fight. Don’t get me wrong — very disappointed in the outcome. We did a lot of things right. We put ourselves in a position to win. But ultimately we didn’t.
“It doesn’t take anything away from how we executed the game plan, how hard these guys played. I thought we had them really out of sorts.”
Burke later added that it was important “to have some perspective about what we're doing with who we have on the floor.”
That’s been difficult for Burke at times because she’s such a fierce competitor. She hates losing. She has struggled after some games to conceal her frustration. More forward-thinking, big-picture messaging would be advisable in those situations. Brennan’s predecessor, Jedd Fisch, was particularly adept at that during football's rebuild.
Promising pattern
Burke meant no disrespect to the players who were on the floor for Arizona at Desert Financial Arena. She just recognizes the reality: The 2025-26 Wildcats are small and young. A true freshman (Mireia Jurado) and a redshirt freshman (Kamryn Kitchen) played 30-plus minutes. Two other true freshmen (Daniah Trammell and Molly Ladwig) played 10-plus minutes.
Arizona forward Daniah Trammell (33) pressures the shot by Arizona guard Jyah Lovett (4) on Jan. 28, 2026, at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe.
Those players all have shown flashes this season and look like potential building blocks should they return. I never assume anything these days when it comes to next year's roster. As Burke herself has conceded, she isn’t for everyone. It’ll be interesting to see how she fares in the all-important area of player retention.
Her first signing class looks promising and includes a pair of players who are listed at 6-2 or taller. One of them, 6-6 Australian center Callie Hinder, enrolled in January and is getting a jump-start on her UA career.
Arizona is 10-10 overall and could finish with a record similar to Barnes’ first season — 14-16. The Wildcats were way worse the next year, finishing 6-24. But that team had a freshman named Sam Thomas who’d become a foundational piece of a program that would win 20-plus games five years in a row and came within a shot of winning a national title.
Yes, the program was in worse shape when Barnes took over. But the mechanisms to engineer a rapid turnaround — the aforementioned transfer portal in particular — weren’t in place either.
Burke has won big — quickly — wherever she’s been. Embry-Riddle went from 14-12 in Year One to 21-6. USC Upstate went from 8-15 to 22-8. Buffalo went from 12-16 to 19-14 to 30-7.
Burke knows what she’s doing. She has surrounded herself with an excellent staff. Her tactical acumen is high. She’s obsessed with winning. She’s invested in this job to the point of losing sleep over it.
UA fans shouldn’t stress over this season’s results. They should, instead, look forward to what lies ahead.
