SAN ANTONIO — The Alamodome was Wildcat Central on Friday night.
Senior forward Sam Thomas said the chants of “U of A,” which the Wildcats hadn’t heard all season because of the pandemic, lifted the team in their 69-59 win over top-seeded UConn. Following the game, the Wildcats celebrated — at a distance — with their fans and former players LaBrittney Jones, Dee-Dee Wheeler, Danielle Adefeso, Angela Lackey and Lindsey Malecha.
“Just knowing that the whole community is behind us. It really means a lot,” Thomas said.
Lackey, who played for the Wildcats from 1998-2000, said her first thought when Arizona punched its ticket to the Final Four was: “Where can I get my tickets? Because I’m going to be there.”
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and you never know you’ll make it back and we never made it,” she said. “There was no chance I was going to miss the opportunity to see the Wildcats and cheer them on in person.”
An Arizona fan dances to music during a second-half timeout in Friday’s game between Arizona and UConn. UA faithful and former players pumped up the team with their chants.
Lackey wasn’t surprised to see so many fellow fans on Friday. Expect even more on Sunday afternoon, when the UA takes on Stanford for the national championship.
Part of the Wildcats’ draw is Adia Barnes, a former player turned coach who has brought the UA from a six-win season to the brink of a championship.
Said Adefeso, a Wildcat from 2001-05: “Adia is the fabric of the program. She understands what it is to be a Wildcat because she was a Wildcat.”
Former student managers make tripChristian Sheppherd and Kevin Edwards have a different connection to the Wildcats. As former student managers, they logged many hours rebounding shots for the likes of Thomas, Cate Reese and Aari McDonald.
“It’s just so amazing to see all these girls hit those milestones that we talked about while I was there for four years,” Sheppherd, now a graduate assistant at Oklahoma, said.
“Having that managers viewpoint, being at all those workouts — whether it be summer, regular season, the extra shooting — to see all that extra work for these girls come to fruition … makes it all that all that much sweeter for them and for everyone involved in the program.”
Shepherd texted Edwards near the end of the Wildcats’ Elite Eight win over Indiana and said, “let’s do this.” They were in San Antonio in time for Friday’s tipoff.
Edwards, a director of digital operations at Real Leaders, said Arizona’s run is special because it’s the first of what he expects to be many more. He joked that he walked by the Wildcats hotel and told them that he booked his room for four nights, so they better get ready to make history.
The two former managers are happy to have a small role in the program’s turnaround.
“That’s definitely more of the players than us,” Edwards said. “But it’s nice to know, we’re part of the foundation…. It’s just the thing that they’re here. I think everyone’s a little bit surprised that, ‘Hey, we’re here this fast.’ But I think we all knew it was coming. We’re not really shocked that the team is here and the girls are ready.”
They’re especially happy to see Thomas and McDonald shining on the national stage.
“Aari will be doing this for a long, long time,” Shepperd said. “Sam is still just doing her job making those key plays — the same ol’, same ol’ Sam.
Paul proud of Cats’ COVID-19 discipline
The COVID-19 pandemic has made for a difficult year, and its hit the Wildcats especially hard.
The restrictions have been taken up a level in San Antonio. For the last three weeks, the Wildcats have been unable to visit their teammates’ hotel rooms or even take walks unescorted.
Dr. Steven Paul, Arizona’s Director of Athletic Medicine and the architect of the athletic department’s “incident command team,” said the Wildcats had “a determination from early on.”
“(There was) buy-in, practicing with masks on, early on. They were zeroed in and they knew the long goal,” he said. “The culture that Adia (Barnes) has brought in, the kids playing in a near image of her as a competitor says it all right there.”
Paul watched Friday’s game from the Alamodome, and will be back for Sunday’s title game. The former soccer coach said the Wildcats are loose before games and having fun.
“No matter what happens, they are going to enjoy this moment,” he said. “They earned it.”
Adia an inspiration
McDonald doesn’t have to look far for inspiration. Barnes seems to be doing it all as a mother, coach and trailblazer.
“I don’t know how she does it, but she finds the time and she has the right schedule going on,” McDonald said. “She has the right people around her helping there.
“To see what she’s doing and just on this platform, she’s creating opportunities for mothers and Black women all around the country. It’s very inspiring. She’s an amazing person to be around. I’m so happy that she’s been a part of my journey.”
Barnes, says she’s “just myself … I just do what I feel, I guess which is good and bad.”
At the end of Friday’s game, ESPN’s cameras caught Barnes talking to her team about those who didn’t believe in them. Barnes delivered a double-hand gesture as she spoke. The clip went viral.
“I said to my team — something that I truly felt and I know they felt — and it just appeared different on TV,” Barnes said Saturday morning.
“I’m not apologizing for it. Because I don’t feel like I need to apologize. It’s what I felt was my team at the moment. ... We’ve gone to war together. … We believe in each other. I’m in those moments. And that’s how I am, so I don’t apologize for doing that. I’m just me and I have to just be me.”
Rim shots
- Thomas earned the NCAA’s Elite90 honor for academics in all of Division I women’s basketball. Thomas graduated in three years, carrying a 3.97 GPA, and is now earning her master’s in educational leadership. In March, she was named Pac-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year.
- Barnes is the second coach to lead her alma mater to the national title game. Old Dominion’s Wendy Larry did it in 1997. Larry, coincidentally, coached at the UA from 1985-87.
