UA facilities staff prepares for long day of Wildcat women's, men's basketball at McKale Sunday

Imagine getting a draft of a Pac-12 schedule showing that twice, in a span of four weeks, both of Arizona’s hoops teams — programs with attendance draws at the top of the Pac-12 conference year in, year out — had games scheduled for McKale Center on the same day.

Welcome to the world of Ashley Summerset and Mike Hairgrove.

This, of course, isn’t the first time that there have been back-to-back events in the arena. Besides, when the UA is hosting the WNIT or NCAA Tournament, there are times when a gymnastics meet falls between two basketball games or a volleyball match is squeezed in as well. Even this past January, when Arizona’s men’s and women’s basketball programs filled the building on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

This time, however, is the first time in UA women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes’ Arizona career that there is this sort-of doubleheader on Sunday afternoon.

Arizona’s women’s team (11-10, 3-6) hosts rival ASU (10-11, 2-7) at noon, followed by the UA’s men’s team (16-5, 7-3) hosting Stanford (11-9, 6-4) at 6 p.m.

Perhaps it’s not a true doubleheader, considering the games aren’t exactly one after another (by the time the women’s game ends, there will be between 3½ and 4 hours until tipoff of the men’s game. But even that still requires coordination and planning from both the facilities crew and the teams involved.

And it will happen again in less than a month on March 2, when the Arizona men face Oregon at noon before the UA women’s squad plays UCLA at 6 p.m.

Summerset, the UA’s associate director of event operations, first thought when she saw this on the schedule: “Oh, poor facilities or I hope facilities is going to be OK,” she said with a laugh as she looked at Hairgrove, who is assistant athletic director of athletic facilities, on a recent Zoom call.

“We’ve had doubleheaders in the past where it’s been two different sports,” Summerset continued. “I think seeing two basketballs at the same time, it was a combination of ‘Why are we doing a doubleheader? Especially during conference,’ but then also ‘(Thankfully) it’s basketball.’”

The reason for Summerset’s relief: it is much easier to do for two basketball games than just about any of the other combinations.

The good thing is that Pac-12 actually asked Arizona how much time they would need in between games to do everything that needs to be done to turn the arena around for the next crowd — and the conference listened.

Focus on fan experience

There’s a lot to be done on a day like Sunday, including getting fans in and out of the arena and parking lots, as well as cleaning up. It’s a big undertaking.

Hairgrove said if they do true back-to-back games like UCLA and USC have done this season, Arizona would have most likely have taken a look at a lot of logistical points. The biggest challenge would be the fan experience and how to move people in and out. Where does everyone park? Do you clear out one group before letting another one in? How would tickets work? Especially now that women’s basketball has around 7,000 season ticket holders and these overlap with those who attend the men’s games.

Both Hairgrove and Summerset were calm earlier in the week, knowing what lay ahead for them and everyone who will be working the games. Then, again, they both have experienced lots of crazy days and nights in their profession.

There are days when women’s basketball and softball are playing at the same time, and Summerset can be seen driving her golf cart between McKale and Hillenbrand Stadium, overseeing both events. Hairgrove can similarly be seen shuttling between men’s hoops, tennis, football and baseball, among other sports. He’s also been one of the architects in bringing replay abilities across many UA sports, including baseball and softball most recently.

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They said that last weekend, with a late night women’s basketball game on Friday night, gymnastics meet on Saturday, then an early women’s hoops on Sunday, was more work in terms of moving equipment on, then off, the court.

That’s not to say weeks like that one in early January — four consecutive basketball games in four days — aren’t difficult. Many of the table crew to the event staffers, parking attendants and concessions supervisors work both sports, leading to a long four days.

“The longevity of that … you just get tired from that,” Summerset said. “Whereas a doubleheader, yes, it’s going to be the same thing, if everybody’s working both sports. They’re going to be here all day. But you can command all of your energy the one day instead of a long weekend.”

All in the planning

The planning starts early in the week. Summerset communicates with officials and visiting teams, concessions and security vendors and the rest of the crew. They have to think about everything from making sure the visiting teams’ buses are arriving and leaving (and at the right times) and locker rooms are available when needed.

Then comes the TV challenge. For Sunday, women’s basketball is on Pac-12 Networks, while the men’s game is on FS1. Big issues included whether there was a need for two TV trucks, both needing unique setups in and around the arena to cater to each network’s preferences. It also takes six hours to do complete that set — time that UA doesn’t have.

Two weeks ago, UA received confirmation that both networks were going to use the same truck, so no need to switch anything out.

They also had to set up practice times for four teams. Stanford’s men’s team opted out of their time to practice in McKale and will do so in Richard Jefferson Gymnasium; that decision was based in part on their preference for practice time. For teams on the road this is usually one of the hardest things because of all the other sports that use the arena each weekend.

“We’re treating it as two separate events because of that gap in time (between the two games),” Hairgrove said. “We’ll have a group set up for the outside — the metal detectors and all of the gate entrance equipment that we put up. We’ll have them set up for the women’s game. Usually, they tear it all down at halftime. We’ll just have them move it out of the way, so we can create a clear path for people exiting McKale. Then, probably about an hour or so after the conclusion of the women’s game, we’re going to have another small crew come in move it into play to get ready for the men’s game.”

They don’t have to change any seating around the court as both squads have the same configuration. Women’s basketball made the switch, adding more courtside seats a few years ago; though, some graphics will change between games for the scoreboards around the arena.

Cleanup between games with women’s basketball going first isn’t much different than any other game.

“I would definitely like to thank our women’s fans because to me, it seems like they’re much cleaner than the men’s fans are,” Hairgrove said.

Summerset added, “Until the last (women’s basketball) game, I didn’t have a single custodial call for spill, which was great. I don’t think you can get through a (men’s) game without a spill call.”

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