Arizona women's basketball faces rival ASU to open Pac-12 play in midst of multi-game gauntlet

When Arizona steps onto the court at Desert Financial Arena on Sunday to take on ASU, the Wildcats will be right in the thick of it.

Yes, it’s the first Pac-12 game of the season and it’s against their hated rival.

But it’s also the middle of a three-game gauntlet that includes two ranked teams, and serves as its own precursor to a tough Pac-12 schedule once the calendar turns to January.

First, there was this past Wednesday's matchup against No. 5 Texas at McKale Center (an 88-75 UA loss to the Longhorns). Next up are the Sun Devils on Sunday.

Then this coming Wednesday, the Wildcats go back up to the Valley — this time to Phoenix's Footprint Center to take on No. 21 Gonzaga.

Gonzaga, now ranked, stunned a then-No. 3 Stanford just a few weeks ago.

And just around the corner, it's the Pac-12 conference season that hits hard. First up, the mountain schools — No. 8 Colorado and No. 11 Utah — come to Tucson.

The final season of the current iteration of the Pac-12 conference looks to be one of its best; most teams have improved to become tough outs seemingly every single night.

First things first: Arizona (7-3) takes on Arizona State (7-3) Sunday at in Tempe at 5 p.m. The game is televised on Pac-12 Networks (Cindy Brunson and Mary Murphy are on the call) with Derrick Palmer on the radio call on 1290-AM.

Now, there’s seemingly a schedule gauntlet in every season. It typically starts with the tournaments around Thanksgiving, which are quick-turnaround events often with three games in three days.

After that, most of Wildcats’ gauntlets come during Pac-12 play. This year is expected to be even harder as five teams are currently ranked in the AP poll (No. 2 UCLA, No. 6 USC, the Buffaloes, No. 9 Stanford and the Utes). Washington, Washington State and Oregon State are all receiving votes.

However, this year, the really tough opponents are coming early.

“We are being thrown into the fire. We're ready. Go big or go home,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said with a laugh.

Arizona’s strength of schedule is 33rd nationally, according to Massey Ratings. For perspective, national powers UConn and South Carolina are at 1 and 2, respectively. Gonzaga is at 10th, Stanford is 12th and UCLA is 13th.

Even more comparison: Additional UA opponents Texas is 36th, USC 49th, UNLV 77th, and ASU 104th.

The Texas matchup last week was the first time in 13 years that Arizona played a top-10 team at home during non-conference play; it was the first time in 15 years for a top-5 opponent at McKale.

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Arizona’s three losses are against ranked or nearly-ranked teams. In addition to Texas, Ole Miss was at 23 when the Wildcats played them in the Battle 4 Atlantis. UNLV, which is now at 23, was receiving votes when Arizona played them on Dec. 2 and of course, Texas last week.

For a year with a young, inexperienced squad that has a lack of depth with only 10 active players — that's the case now that Maya Nnaji has left the team to focus on academics and with Montaya Dew is out for the year with a knee injury — that’s a tall task.

However, as Barnes and other coaches have said before, scheduling is not easy. It took Barnes two years to put together last year’s schedule. For this season, “I look back I'm like, I don't know why I did that,” Barnes said.

“But it's very challenging getting games,” Barnes said. “It costs a lot of money. I don't like to spend money that we don't have to spend. I'm very conscious of that as a head coach and running a program. But it is what it is.

"I honestly didn't expect to have so many new players this year, too. So that's just a part of that's the reality," she said. "That's just the way basketball is nowadays.”

And some things Barnes said she has no control of when it comes to scheduling. For example, she said she wanted to finish the home-and-home with Texas three years ago, but it kept getting pushed out. She wanted the match up with Gonzaga and in the Jerry Colangelo Hall of Fame series but the date wasn’t great, coming off what will be Sunday's ASU game just three days before. This one she stuck with as it was too good to pass up. 

The Wildcats also played three home games in five days to start the season. Then at 4 a.m. the next morning, flew to the Bahamas for Battle 4 Atlantis. None of this is ideal, but it’s a combination of what teams have open spots and whether those match up with Arizona’s. Barnes said that she also schedules around the men’s basketball team and putting both of those things together, adds up to the games sometimes coming in bunches.

“We're going to face this every week in the Pac-12,” Barnes said. “The Pac-12 is really tough. When I look at it from that standpoint, at least we're learning now versus learning five games in a row in the Pac-12.

"Our young players are going to learn what the rival (ASU) is like because they don't know what that's like yet. At least we are going to see what it's all about, before we just get punched in the face the first week in January. From that standpoint, I'm kind of glad now. (However) knowing that we were going to be so young and have limited players I probably would have scheduled a little different but when you find out it's already kind of done."

Photos: Arizona women's basketball ground down by No. 5 Texas, 88-75, college basketball