Arizona vs. USCD pits Adia Barnes, her former WNBA coach Heidi VanDerveer, as opponents

For Arizona’s Adia Barnes, who has already done so much in basketball from winning a WNBA Championship as a player in 2004, to coaching her Wildcats to within a point of an NCAA Championship in 2021, there aren’t all that many “firsts” for her to experience on the court.

But there will be one Thursday night at McKale Center.

As Barnes’ Arizona women’s basketball team looks to get back into the win column, it will be against a UC San Diego squad coached by one of her former coaches, Heidi VanDerveer. It will be the first time Barnes coaches against someone who coached her.

Roll it back to 1998. VanDerveer — she is the sister of Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer — was the head coach of the WNBA’s Sacramento Monarchs, the team that drafted Barnes in the fourth round of that year’s draft, at No. 32 overall.

“I think you see the same things in Adia as a player that you do in Adia as a coach: somebody who has a tremendous passion for basketball,” VanDerveer said.

“A passion for winning and when she was at Arizona (as a player and we were) scouting her, obviously the term undersized in the post, she just understood how to be successful, understood how to help her team win and very much a competitor. I feel like you see those same things in her Arizona teams — again, figuring out ways to win with different adversity and challenges. Whether you’re going to the Final Four or you’re just trying to figure things out in the new landscape of women’s basketball or college athletics.”

Both Arizona (6-2) and UC San Diego (3-5) are coming off tough losses over the weekend when they face off on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at McKale Center. The game can be streamed via the Pac-12’s Arizona Live Stream, while Derrick Palmer will be on the radio call on 1290-AM.

This is also the first time these two programs have played each other as the Tritons have only been a Division I team the last four seasons. It also was hard to find an open date. The Wildcats will play in San Diego, Barnes’ hometown next season.

In Barnes’ rookie season in Sacramento, she played with the likes of Ruthy Bolton, Latasha Byears, Tangela Smith, Bridgette Gordon and fellow rookie Ticha Penicheiro.

Barnes averaged 7.6 points per game, shooting nearly 40% overall and 30% from the three, and played in all 29 games that season, earning a spot in the starting rotation 16 times.

“Adia was very competitive, a great teammate, high energy — all things that that if you weren’t that back then in the league, you didn’t really last. Contracts were different. People came and left. It was like a revolving door,” VanDerveer said.

Barnes ended up carving out a long career both overseas and in the WNBA, playing 13 years.

VanDerveer said that “is a testament of not just her skillset, but her adaptability.”

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“Just the great teammate (who was) willing to do anything to help her team win. I think those are traits that not everybody had, and not everybody has, either. I think that that’s just like a testament to who she is every day as a person,” VanDerveer said.

It’s hard for both of them to remember specifics about more than 20 years ago. After all, there’s a lot of games between the two of them. Barnes always says that most of the games she played in roll into one big one.

However, what sticks with Barnes about VanDerveer, who now is a peer and a friend, is that she is “a good person.”

“She’s a good coach,” Barnes said. “I just remember she wasn’t a big yeller. She was really smart, but I feel like they’re all smart — Tara, her sister — I feel like they have coaching in their blood. But just a really good communicator. I remember her just always be honest. She’s approachable. I just remember her having some really good traits.

“And you wanted to play for her.”

Barnes didn’t just play for VanDerveer in her rookie season. The following year she moved on to the Minnesota Lynx; VanDerveer was an assistant coach to Brian Agler, who would go on to be one of the many who influenced Barnes’ coaching career.

Thursday night, it’s a matchup of two successful coaches. VanDerveer has been a coach at the pro and collegiate levels for more than two-and-a-half decades. She started out as a grad assistant to the late, legendary Pat Summit at Tennessee; she worked with USA Basketball as well as in the WNBA and has been at UCSD for 12 years. Her Triton record is 223-100 to date.

Barnes is already in her ninth season as a head coach. She has five consecutive 20 win seasons and is also in the USA Basketball coaching pool. Barnes’ record is 138-86 to date.

“It’s always weird when you’re going against someone like you played for,” Barnes said. “We’re both at different places, it’s 20-something years later. I’m coaching. I would have never thought I’d coach. She’s still a coach and she’s living in my hometown. I’m happy for her. She’s a good woman, a good coach, and I’m glad she’s successful.”