Arizona women's basketball 2023-24 outlook: UA roster, fortitude a reflection of their coach

It’s hard to believe that Adia Barnes is heading into her eighth season in the top spot of the Arizona program.

After all, she is a young coach who is still in her first head coaching role.

During that span, she’s seen and experienced a lot.

Her program went from winning only six games in her second season to nearly winning an NCAA title just three years later. And everything in between, including being ranked at a program-high of No. 4 in the Top 25 to winning a WNIT championship and having back-to-back seasons end in the second round of NCAA postseason play.

During this time, Barnes put her alma mater, a downtrodden program, back on the map.

She was rewarded by the fans, who have come out to support the Wildcats. They sold out McKale Center for that WNIT title game. Arizona has cracked the Top 10 in attendance across all of women’s college hoops in the last two seasons — averaging 7,822 per game in the 2021-22 season and 7,679 in 2022-23.

Barnes was also rewarded by the university in an extension with a more than $1 million salary.

With all these highs, some coaches might be of the mindset that they can just cruise from here on out.

Not Barnes.

Every offseason she works to grow as a coach. Sometimes it’s studying with veteran coaches or even teaching players in Italy. She also joined the pool of coaches for Team USA and was on South Carolina’s Dawn Staley’s staff for the AmeriCup gold medal winning team in 2021. In April of 2022, Barnes was an on-court coach for USA Basketball Women’s National Team Training camp.

She’s even tweaked her system to fit the young women on her squad. With a budding star in the making ready to lead the Wildcats on the program’s WNIT and NCAA title game runs — Aari McDonald, who could create her own shot — the Wildcats played more of a dribble-drive style of offense. When they’ve had more physical players, the defense was shifted to fit that. Last season, with more scorers, they leaned on the offensive side more than defense.

Learning from the best

Count Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer in as someone who is a fan of Barnes. She has watched up-close as Barnes has evolved into the coach she is today.

“Adia is an outstanding coach,” VanDerveer said. “What I was impressed with the year that we ended up playing them in the (NCAA Championship game) was just how much her team improved, and how confident the players were playing for her. She has a great basketball mind. She is dedicated to the game of basketball.

“As a young coach in some way she had so much success early (and) it was hard work. She’s willing to do the hard work. And to be in it for the long haul, you’re not going to keep doing the same thing every year. The fact that she’s open to changing; evaluating herself, I think that shows great maturity.”

This offseason might turn into one of the most important of Barnes’ still-young coaching career. She’s done exactly what VanDerveer says is needed to be successful — and who would know better than the the winningest coach in women’s basketball, who, soon enough, will be the winning coach among men’s or women’s coaches as Vanderveer enters 2023-24 just 17 wins from surpassing former Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski at 1,202.

Barnes has pivoted. Instead of staying the course, the Wildcats have made the necessary changes across the board.

Some of the changes can be attributed to outside forces, like the transfer portal or name, image and likeness (NIL) money floating around. But, ultimately, it was more about getting back to the basics and having all aspects of the program reflect Barnes and carry her values.

“I made the necessary changes for the better … for the program,” Barnes said. “I think that change is good sometimes. I think resetting is good sometimes and healthy. And it was very important for me overall. That didn’t mean having less talent but doing things the right way with the right people was very important.”

Some were hard decisions — she said goodbye to staff and players — and she never thought she’d be in that position. However, the last few years, with the ongoing pandemic and its aftermath, took its’ toll on everyone — Barnes included. When she weighed the pros and cons, she knew her decisions were the right ones.

Barnes said when she looked at who she was bringing onboard in the spring, it was about finding those who were aligned with her, “You have to have similar goals, values and principles.”

This applies across to new staff and incoming players.

So, much so, that when determining what transfers she was bringing in, her strategy was very specific. Barnes was looking for those who understood team basketball, had a blue-collar work ethic, were “gritty” — her word — and were good teammates.

If that sounds familiar it should. Some of those traits were those of the players Barnes had on those teams that changed the program.

“It’s very similar in the sense that we have players that really want to get back (to the Final Four),” Barnes said. “We have players who are determined to do something special and I can feel it, I can see it. They’re very coachable. And they all want to do a good job. They want they want to learn. I think when you have that, you can tell that we’re going to be a pretty solid defensively but not the most athletic, not the biggest, but I think just the will. They want to fight and win. I think that’s there. We have that.

“We have a really young team and that desire to want to be coached and learn and just trying to soak up all his knowledge. I think it makes us hungry and we’ll get better because we have that fight in us.”

Old strategy, new strategy

Barnes was one of the first who used the transfer portal to such an obvious advantage. The first of her transfers were McDonald, Dominique McBryde, Tee Tee Starks and Shaina Pellington. All four had to sit out a season before the NCAA changed the rule that allowed transfers to play immediately. Another one of Barnes’ transfers in those early years was Bendu Yeaney, who was integral in that magical run to the 2021 National title game.

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She sprinkled this in with a few grad transfers — Kat Wright, Amari Carter and Trinity Baptiste — who saw their own successes as Wildcats.

When Barnes reflected on this last spring, she noticed a pattern.

“When I thought about it, my best teams and the way we teach, the way we coach — having that continuity that cohesiveness (that) it takes years to build — is more beneficial long term,’” Barnes said.

It’s always been about the development that happens in the summer training sessions, as well as the individual skills during the season. Factor in that the Arizona system — especially the defense — has layers and is complex.

That’s why, for 2023-24, Barnes decided to take transfers who had a few years of eligibility left just like she did with McDonald, McBryde, Starks, Pellington and Yeaney. This year’s transfer group (Isis Beh, Courtney Blakely, Sali Kourouma), plus the two sophomores (Maya Nnaji and Kailyn Gilbert) and the freshman class (Breya Cunningham, Jada Williams, Skylar Jones and Montaya Dew), allows for that development.

That is, if they stay. Barnes is banking on that with a short bench this season (only 10 are active with Dew out recovering from ACL surgery) and the opportunity to offer more playing time.

A roster built on chemistry

This pivot from taking top grad transfers, thus limiting the playing time of the freshman class, is one thing that could make all the difference.

Another is chemistry.

“Talent is really important in anything you do, whether it’s coaching or business,” Former UA coach and TV analyst Joan Bonvicini said. “However, what’s even more important is the chemistry, camaraderie, unselfishness. It’s hard to necessarily to really say exactly what chemistry is, but you definitely know when you have it and you definitely know when you don’t.

“This team — and I said this to Adia very early on when I watched a practice — this team this year, is already different than previous years. You could tell they get along better. They genuinely like each other. They want the team to do well. And obviously everyone wants to do well as a player, but it’s more important that the team does well,” Bonvicini said. “Part of that maybe is having a smaller roster. Adia only played seven (in the first exhibition game). But honestly, it’s more than that. It’s having the players that fit the profile of what she wants to do as a coach — not only accepts it, but relishes in their role.”

Bonvicini added that sometimes it’s the small changes here and there that make a significant difference. She noted that at the start of Barnes’ tenure at Arizona, she didn’t have a lot of players, but she got the best out of them. And since Barnes’ third season — the first of five consecutive seasons with 20 or more wins — they’ve been on a roll.

This season, the Arizona defense will look a bit different as well. There’s a lot more pressure and it’ll be even more disruptive than in the past. Again, some of this is based on the talent, while some is getting back to basics to what Barnes thinks is important.

Bonvicini knows all about changing up defenses as ahead of the 2002-03 season, she did just that.

Bonvicini had seen a defense that intrigued her on film. It was run by then-George Mason coach Jim Larrañaga, who is now at Miami. She studied it more and sent an assistant coach to watch practice.

“I told him I really liked (the system) and we were going to implement it,” Bonvicini said. “He said, ‘Joan, I want you to call me after you win the Pac-10 title.’ We didn’t win it that first year doing it but we won it the second year.”

The 2003-04 team are the only Wildcats to win a league title.

Again, looking back, Barnes had a few more changes in mind. One was being intentional about setting higher standards. Starting in June, every Wildcat — player, coach, support staff — had a clearer understanding of what was expected of them.

She even now gives “tough love,” some of her players have said.

“She’s always been a player’s coach,” UA assistant coach Salvo Coppa said. “Now, she’s realized that discipline is not a bad word. It’s necessary. She wants to discipline players to follow the rules. And that’s it. That’s the culture that she’s empowering in them. Not forcing them but letting them understand that if you’re disciplined in life, in basketball, you have huge advantages. And if you’re not, it’s just not going to work for a program that has the level of culture that we want.”

For Barnes, who is all about relationships, showing that she cares about her players comes naturally to her. She said that once she does this, the Wildcats will respond by giving their all on the court.

That’s most likely the difference-maker in how far her teams — this year and beyond — go in postseason.