For Arizonaβs 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 arenβt all that many βfirstsβ for her to experience on the court.
But there will be one Thursday night at McKale Center.
As Barnesβ Arizona womenβs 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 β she is the sister of Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer β was the head coach of the WNBAβs Sacramento Monarchs, the team that drafted Barnes in the fourth round of that yearβs draft, at No. 32 overall.
βI 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,β VanDerveer said.
βA 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 β again, figuring out ways to win with different adversity and challenges. Whether youβre going to the Final Four or youβre just trying to figure things out in the new landscape of womenβs basketball or college athletics.β
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-12βs 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, Barnesβ hometown next season.
In Barnesβ 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.
βAdia was very competitive, a great teammate, high energy β all things that that if you werenβt that back then in the league, you didnβt really last. Contracts were different. People came and left. It was like a revolving door,β VanDerveer said.
Barnes ended up carving out a long career both overseas and in the WNBA, playing 13 years.
VanDerveer said that βis a testament of not just her skillset, but her adaptability.β
βJust 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 thatβs just like a testament to who she is every day as a person,β VanDerveer said.
Itβs hard for both of them to remember specifics about more than 20 years ago. After all, thereβs 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 βa good person.β
βSheβs a good coach,β Barnes said. βI just remember she wasnβt a big yeller. She was really smart, but I feel like theyβre all smart β Tara, her sister β I feel like they have coaching in their blood. But just a really good communicator. I remember her just always be honest. Sheβs approachable. I just remember her having some really good traits.
βAnd you wanted to play for her.β
Barnes didnβt 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 Barnesβ coaching career.
Thursday night, itβs 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. Barnesβ record is 138-86 to date.
βItβs always weird when youβre going against someone like you played for,β Barnes said. βWeβre both at different places, itβs 20-something years later. Iβm coaching. I would have never thought Iβd coach. Sheβs still a coach and sheβs living in my hometown. Iβm happy for her. Sheβs a good woman, a good coach, and Iβm glad sheβs successful.β