Former Arizona Wildcat Trinity Baptiste reinvents her game as a professional basketball player

When former Arizona Wildcat Trinity Baptiste decided to transfer to the UA four years ago, she did so seeing two big outcomes for the next stages of her basketball career.

In the near term, she envisioned the kind of run that the Wildcats embarked on in Spring 2021. Baptiste was a big part of the Wildcats’ magical ride to the Final Four of that year’s NCAA Women’s Basketball tournament, where they ultimately finished as national runner-up.

In the longer term, Baptiste, who left Virginia Tech for Tucson for that one remarkable season, knew somehow, some way, she’d be a professional basketball player.

While recent Wildcats Helena Pueyo and Esmery Martinez looked toward Monday night’s WNBA draft hoping to hear their names called — or, at least, hoping to get a call after the fact with news that a team would want to sign them to training camp deals — Baptiste’s journey is one of many Pueyo and Martinez can look at when determining how they’ll each navigate their own pro careers.

While Pueyo (Spain) and Martinez (Dominican Republic) came to the United States to further their career, basketball itself led Baptiste to a wave of international experiences.

Three years after Baptiste played in the national championship game with the Wildcats, the sport has taken her to Russia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Mexico, Romania and now, this past season, to Turkey.

She’s also held a spot on the Lebanese National Team.

“For anyone who has a dream, first you have to believe it, and see it, and then say it — and actually work toward that every day to believe it’s going to happen,” Baptiste said. “It’s not going to happen on accident.

“Everything I’m living now is what I dreamt of or thought of before. I think that’s where it started. You have to envision it for yourself before it can become your reality. That’s what I’ve done for myself.”

That, and quite a bit of on-court skill and hard work — the latter something Baptiste has never shied away from — all play a role.

As a UA senior in 2020-21, Baptiste was known for setting the standard of what was expected among her Wildcat teammates. When things got tough after an early exit from the Pac-12 Tournament, she didn’t back down from telling her teammates what’s what.

Baptiste was also the one who kept the team steady when Aari McDonald injured her ankle in the Wildcats’ Elite Eight matchup with Indiana; McDonald was off the court for nearly a minute during a critical time, though the Wildcats held on to secure a spot in the Final Four. Baptiste put up a double-double in that game with 12 points, 10 rebounds and two big blocks.

Baptiste could shoot from mid-range and long distance but was mainly found down low, where she collected 164 rebounds — the most for Arizona that season. During the NCAA Tournament run, she averaged 9.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.

She was the No. 24 pick in the 2021 draft by the Indiana Fever just a week after the title game. A few weeks later, she was waived. Baptiste saw first-hand what Pueyo and Martinez will now experience on one side of the coin or another: the WNBA is a difficult league to make, with just 12 teams and 144 total available roster spots (though many teams don’t fill every spot, so there are usually only about 133 or so total players, league-wide, despite 36 being drafted Monday night).

But that’s also what led to Baptiste’s journey playing journey playing overseas. And, when her most recent pro season for Bursa Uludag in Turkey’s Women’s Basketball Super League ended, Baptiste headed back home in Tampa, Florida, to be with her family and train for next season in Europe.

This season in Turkey, she averaged 18.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game as the starting shooting guard.

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Her point guard was former Stanford standout Kiana Williams — the same Kiana Williams who was at the point on the team that beat the Wildcats, 54-53, for the title in 2021.

In the fall, when Williams followed Baptiste in signing to play for Bursa, Baptiste said one of the first things her new teammate said to their coach was, “I hope she forgives me for the national championship.”

Baptiste is well past the sting of that loss. After hearing about everything that Stanford went through that COVID-19 season — including living in hotels and not being able to play on their home court for most of the year — Baptiste admits that “they deserved it.”

However, that doesn’t mean that the two friends don’t rib each other about that game.

On the court, Baptiste thinks they were “the best duo” in Turkey.

“It’s beautiful; I love playing with Kiana,” Baptiste said.

“She’s a natural point guard and she’s a natural leader. She’s electrifying on the court to watch but she’s also calm. It’s easy to communicate with her on the court. It’s easy to understand her and she listens, as well. She does make the game so easy.”

Baptiste has thrived in that shooting guard role despite being a forward for the Wildcats. At 6-0 she is considered undersized and had to pivot to earn spots on teams.

And Americans playing overseas are expected to score. While her role in college was centered on defense and getting rebounds (she finished her career with 870), she has evolved her game completely.

In the offseasons, one of the first things she does when she goes home for a month or even a few weeks is hit the gym.

“Mainly I am working out with pros — professional men playing overseas and some NBA-caliber players — playing against them,” Baptiste said. “It helps me a lot with my game and my confidence overall ... because it’s so hard to score against those guys. We’re working out together playing one-on-one and they’re challenging me.”

And then there is that new-ish skill: ballhandling. In college, she didn’t have to focus too much on it as she had guards like McDonald to take on that load. But now, sliding over to a guard position, it’s vital.

Former WNBA superstar Tamika Catchings talked to Baptiste the day she was waived from the Indiana Fever. Baptiste said Catchings told her: “The best advice I can give you is work on your ballhandling. Coming off screens knowing where the ball should go, where the help defense is coming from.”

If the idea of Baptiste having to reinvent her game as a pro because she’s undersized sounds familiar, it should. Barnes, Arizona’s coach, was also an undersized post in college (at 5-10) and had to do the exact thing as a professional. It worked as Barnes went on to have a long career playing overseas and winning a 2004 WNBA championship with the Seattle Storm. Plus there is a little something more that these two have in common.

“Adia was a dog when she played,” Baptiste said. “Of course, she was undersized. She was a dog and she wanted to destroy her opponents. She always told me to keep that dog in me, that ‘it factor.’ I always say I have something to prove every time I’m on the court. I feel like that is what separates me from others. And that’s what separated Adia from her opponents when she played.”