Arizona women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes has been named a semifinalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award.
The list of semifinalists was announced Wednesday morning. Barnes is one of 10 coaches to make the cut, joining Louisville’s Jeff Walz, Gonzaga’s Lisa Fortier, Georgia Tech’s Nell Fortner, Oregon’s Kelly Graves, Northwestern’s Joe McKeown, North Carolina State’s Wes Moore, South Dakota’s Dawn Plitzuweit, South Carolina’s Dawn Staley and Baylor’s Kim Mulkey.
Graves, coach of the No. 3-ranked Ducks, was named Pac-12 coach of the year on Tuesday. Among the semifinalists, Mulkey is the only coach to have previously won the award.
Barnes and Graves will try to become the first Pac-12 coach to win the Naismith Award since 2011, when Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer took the honor. Four finalists will be announced March 19. The winner will be announced April 4 by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.
“The competition for the Werner Ladder Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year Award intensifies as the regular season comes to a close,” said Eric Oberman, executive director of the Atlanta Tipoff Club. “It’s an incredible challenge for our voters to differentiate one coach from another, yet that’s something we have learned to expect every year as different teams and their coaches rise to the top.”
Barnes, a UA star as a player, has led the Wildcats to one of the greatest seasons in program history. Arizona was picked to finish sixth in the Pac-12 preseason poll, but has posted a 23-6 regular-season record and led the team to a 12-6 mark in league play.
The 13th-ranked Wildcats earned a first-round bye in this week’s Pac-12 Tournament. Arizona will play at 12:30 p.m. Friday against either 12th-seeded Cal or fifth-seeded Arizona State. The winner will advance to the semifinals on Saturday.
