UConn coach Geno Auriemma still remembers what it was like having to game plan for Adia Barnes as a player.
During the 1998 season, Barnes led the Wildcats to their first-ever Sweet 16, and the third-seeded Cats squared off against No. 2 UConn. Barnes was that season’s Pac-10 Player of the Year as a senior and had scored more points than any other player in Arizona history — a record she still holds.
“Clearly, she was an impossible matchup for anybody, at any level,” Auriemma recalled this week.
Barnes scored 17 points, but UConn beat Arizona 74-57 that day in Dayton, Ohio. The schools will face each other again in the tournament on Friday, with the winner advancing to the national title game.
Barnes will be walking the sidelines as Arizona’s coach.
Auriemma talked this week about Arizona’s success, Aari McDonald’s game and what he expects from the Final Four matchup. (Questions and answers are lightly edited for clarity).
What do you remember about Adia Barnes as a player from the ’98 Sweet 16 game?
A: “You couldn’t guard with a guard, you couldn’t guard with a forward. She just was an absolute great basketball player — smart, really tough and skilled. For us it was all about guarding her, trying to contain and isolate her as much as possible. She took up the focus of our scouting report.”
What’s impressed you the most from her perspective as a coach?
A: “When Adia took the job at Arizona, basketball was not even the No. 1 women’s sport at Arizona — softball is. You’re coming into a program where basketball has never been it. Their softball is legendary at Arizona, don’t get me wrong, but she’s made basketball supremely important.
“She’s just, I think, a coach for the future who’s having tremendous success in the present. She’s one of those players that played, they were tough, they were smart, they go into the game, they understand it, they manage the game. They interact with their players in a way that’s really, really impressive. I’ve gotten to know her and her family. I couldn’t be happier for any individual to see them in the Final Four.”
How would you describe Aari McDonald’s impact at Arizona and are there any similarities between her game and Paige Bueckers’ game?
A: “She’s way more experienced than Paige. You get her in that pick-and-roll, she’s talented and knows every ins and outs of that, you know how to run that. She’s fearless as an offensive player. She’s a first-team All-American defensive player.
“Jamelle Elliott, who’s handling the scout for us … I said, ‘J, what are we doing here?’ She said, ‘I don’t know Coach, we’re playing against Allen Iverson.’ I’m going to have to call my coaching buddies in the old Big East and go, ‘How do you prepare for Allen Iverson?’
“(Aari) is a dominant player who, kind of like Paige, there have been numerous times — more than you can count — where she just carries her team and wills her team to win both with her physical talents and the intangibles that she brings and how hard she plays. I think she’s a phenomenal player, she’s a tremendous individual. I don’t know that there’s anything that any one team, or any one player I should say, has been able to do to completely stop her from doing what she wants to do. Our staff feels like this is probably the most dominant guard that we will have played against this year. No question.”
What jumps out to you about the rest of the team as they navigate the new heights of making the Final Four?
A: “Well, first of all, they play exceptionally hard. They compete exceptionally hard defensively, they just are relentless and they get contributions from the whole team. So when you have that kind of base to work with then anything’s possible. So they shoot it, just well enough. And lately, in the NCAA Tournament, they’ve shot it great.
“Between their defense, how incredibly hard they compete, making shots and they’re getting contributions from everybody … I think Adia has got this kind of temperament, so she’s going to keep them level. I don’t think they’re going to be afraid of the moment, and I don’t think they’re going to be whacked out over the moment. I think they’ve got a lot going for them. I can think of a lot of other teams I’d rather be playing Friday night.”
How do you break Arizona’s full-court press when they go to it defensively?
A: “You’ve got to be able to pass the ball well. You have to have enough perimeter players that can attack it. That goes back to how I would feel if we had Nika (Muhl), one more guard to attack it.
“The best defensive team we played this year is Baylor, bar none. Arizona is a different kind of defensive team; they do it a little bit differently. I think the two best defenses that we’ve seen. We’ve played one of them already and that was Monday night, and we’re getting ready to play another one on Friday.”
