Adia Barnes is done with what she calls “the Oregon situation.”
Arizona’s women’s basketball coach spoke on Wednesday about her back-and-forth with Oregon coach Kelly Graves during Saturday’s showdown in Oregon. The two got heated in an eventual 68-66 overtime win by the Ducks, with Barnes reportedly making a one-finger gesture following the game. Barnes tweeted an apology later that night.
“It was a heated situation, but I have composure and I control how I respond,” Barnes said Wednesday. “That’s my prerogative what I choose to do. When I don’t respond well or yell at official, that’s not my character. That’s why I apologized for the way I behaved. I know I’m a role model … but I’m not perfect. And I’m going to make mistakes and I’m going to get emotional and I’m passionate, but I always have to conduct myself in the right way.”
Barnes went on to say that “everything really got blown out of proportion,” and that she thinks she knows why.
“I think it’s just more of an issue because it’s a male and a female, but we’re both competitors,” she said. “He’s a competitor; his team backs him. I’m a competitor; my team backs me. But I think that’s just what it was …
“Of course, we are both coaches we yell at the court, ‘That’s not a foul,’ or this and that. That’s just what we both do — really nothing. I just think stuff was blown out of proportion and people were looking for something.”
Barnes didn’t get into specifics about what was said between her and Graves. UA point guard Shaina Pellington tweeted on Sunday that Barnes was “cussed at and called out of her name in the most vulgar ways the entire game by Kelly,” writing that she supported Barnes for sticking up for herself.
Pellington said Tuesday it was “the right thing to do, especially for my coach.”
“I didn’t like seeing the fact that people were speaking on her character,” she said. “She’s a great woman, a great individual and I look up to her a lot and a lot of my teammates do as well. So yeah, I mean, sticking up for my coach that was just a first-nature kind of thing. It was the right thing to do.”
Pellington said she often hears things from the court that even people who sit courtside don’t. That sometimes includes remarks about her coach.
“Players hear a lot of stuff in games — not only that game,” Barnes said. “I’m probably called a lot of names, but I’ve been called a b-i-t-c-h before. It’s not gonna be the first, it’s not the last, and that really doesn’t bother me at all. It’s like, whatever. … I think that players obviously get emotional because that’s your coach.
“There can’t be a situation where there’s any interaction on either side, and it happens a lot. I think it happens men’s games, probably every single game. But it’s not an issue because it’s men. Men can coach different. If men are yelling like crazy, they’re passionate. If women are yelling like crazy, they are crazy. So that’s just a double standard we have in our sport and unfortunately that’s the way it is.”
Before the Wildcats practiced on Sunday, Barnes discussed her exchange with Graves with her team. Part of her message was to “stand up for yourself, always.”
“But you handle yourself in a professional manner,” Barnes added. “You don’t get out of control. You don’t lose your composure. Stand up for yourself always, but do it in the right way.”
The reprimand
Following Saturday’s loss, Barnes complained about the officiating, noting the foul differential between the two teams. Tuesday, she was reprimanded by the Pac-12 for her comments.
“We talked, obviously, and I apologized because it’s right,” Barnes said. “I think our refs do a really good job. … We have good officials. We really do. I thought the game was tough and I think that I should not have said we got ‘homered.’ I shouldn’t have said that. I never blame a loss on officiating. It wasn’t why we lost. Oregon played better than us down the stretch. It is what it is. But I can’t respond like that in a press conference.”
Five in 10
Arizona will play UCLA on Wednesday in Los Angeles, giving them five games over 10 days. That may seem like a lot, but the Wildcats are up for it.
“Games are a lot more fun than practices,” senior Sam Thomas said. “We’re very happy about that. It probably will be a little tiring, but they’re doing a good job of managing practices and what we’re doing before and after games, recovery, treatment, eating, sleeping, all that. We’re just excited.”
The stretch begins Friday with a home game against Utah, which is third in the nation in scoring offense, averaging 84.7 points per game. On Sunday, 13-2 Colorado rolls in. The Wildcats will play in Los Angeles, then head north for game against Cal and No. 2 Stanford.
“I think this is going to be the new reality in the Pac-12, because a lot of people are going to have makeup games. It’s going to be the Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, which is hard in our league,” Barnes said. “On the end of that trip, we face Stanford, and Stanford is really tough. There isn’t any team that’s not good in that trip. Cal always gives us a hard time and Cal has a chance to beat it to beat us and they’re good team. There’s not totally healthy right now. I think that’s not a team you can overlook, either. There isn’t one game this next, you know, 10 days or 9 days that we can just not prepare for. It’s a challenge and I’m curious to see how we’re going to respond to the challenge. But for me, it’s preparing us for the tournament — preparing us for the Pac-12 and come back and then have to prepare for the tournament. You play kind of similar schedule. I think it’s going to be a good learning lesson for us.”
