'Culture is everything' as Adia Barnes considers adding a transfer to WNIT champ Wildcats

Adia Barnes just keeps going.

The UA coach knows there’s always something that needs to get done — whether it’s solidifying the Wildcats’ 2019-20 nonconference schedule, recruiting, or finding ways to get better.

She has to keep going if the Wildcats are going to build off a WNIT championship and evolve into a consistently ranked team.

“The breaks I take are during the dead period … the period where it’s a shutdown (for recruiting), where I can’t talk to anybody,” Barnes said Thursday in her end-of-the-season news conference at McKale Center. “That will be the break I take and then in August.”

Transfer add a new wrinkle for Arizona this offseason. More than 400 players are actively seeking to play for another team.

Barnes said she’s still evaluating whether the UA, which has already signed five newcomers, will take on any transfers. She conceded that “there’s a lot of movement around the country.”

“I think (it’s) good and bad,” she said. “The downfall is people are losing players. But the positive thing is you have the opportunity to add some really good players or fifth-years as a grad transfer. So we’re diving into that and finding ways to get better.

“I wouldn’t mind a really athletic guard. But we’re going to bring some really good freshmen in, too. So there’s a balance for that. You want to bring in your freshmen, develop them. … Like right now, we’re recruiting for 2020, so transfers can help you right away.”

Barnes has been extremely successful when it comes to landing transfers. UA star Aari McDonald began her career at Washington, and fellow Wildcats Dominique McBryde (Purdue) and Tee Tee Starks (Iowa State) have made a huge impact on the program.

“A transfer can help you right away and can bring a championship, winning attitude, and help you in different ways,” Barnes said. “I’m not huge on transfers, but if they can help us and I know people who know them or have coached them, and I know it’s a good situation, I’ll take them. But from my past experience, I’m not someone who would take five transfers.”

Barnes recruited both McDonald and Starks when she was an assistant coach at Washington, and knew people who were close with McBryde.

“For me, culture is everything. I always say that,” Barnes said. “So I’m not going to take a chance on a not-so-good-culture kid just to win a couple more games. I’m not going to do that. For me, it’s not that important. So it’s doing all the research, finding out all those things.

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“I don’t take it lightly, because one player can really damage a program. So for me it has to be a fit, has to be a great person — it’s more about that than the player. And then it has to be a player who fits something we don’t have.”

Everybody’s talking

Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb heaped praise on Arizona’s best player when she appeared on this week’s episode of the “Inside Pac-12 Women’s Basketball” podcast. Gottlieb called McDonald “the single best player in the country who is returning, not named Sabrina (Ionescu).”

“Aari McDonald is really remarkable,” Gottlieb said. “People are going to hear her name now as she takes the next step.”

Pac-12 Networks’ Ashley Adamson praised the Wildcats for “the rocket they lit under the fan base” during their WNIT championship run. Co-host Mary Murphy said she was impressed by the way Barnes sold her program to the Tucson community.

“Here’s five jobs: coach your team; go on every radio show, every TV show, every morning show, evening show; take your husband and say you are going to auction him off for tickets … she just put it all out there,” Murphy said.

“(Barnes) just kept saying, ‘Let’s get more. We’re going to have more people.’ What if nobody did? But they did. They believed in what she was selling and it’s a beautiful story — it’s one of the best stories out there.”

Rim shots

• Arizona’s nonconference schedule for next season is fairly set. Finding willing opponents may become more difficult now that the Wildcats have a reputation for drawing big crowds and winning at home.

“People don’t want to play us as much as before,” Barnes said. “Before, you really wanted to play us because you get a chance at beating a Pac-12 team. I think for us now, as we get better, it gets more challenging. You have to be more strategic. But these are good problems.”

• Sam Thomas was named to the Pac-12’s all-academic first team, and both Starks and Lucia Alonso received honorable mention.