Celebrating Pac-12 women's hoops: Joan Bonvicini on the final year of the league she coached in

The Pac-12 has stood out as one of the best women’s basketball leagues in the nation over the last two decades. This being the league’s final season, each month the Star is sharing Pac-12-centered stories of former Arizona players, as well as former and current league coaches. Up this week: The winningest coach in Arizona history, Joan Bonvicini.

Bonvicini, who is now a TV analyst, compiled more than 700 wins during her 36-year coaching career at Long Beach State, Arizona and Seattle. She took the Wildcats to nine post-season appearances and won a Pac-10 title in 2003-04, a season in which the Wildcats had a perfect home record.

At Arizona, she coached an All-American, one Pac-10 player of the year and the first Wildcat drafted into the WNBA (current UA coach Adia Barnes); she also mentored five honorable mention All-Americans and 14 academic All-Pac-10 selections. Little known about "Coach B": She was a guard at Southern Connecticut University, played in multiple AIAW (Associated for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) Final Fours and was a finalist for the 1976 Olympic women's basketball team. 

The best of the west: “I think, having coached the majority of my coaching career basically on the West Coast, you know, in California and then at Arizona, and then at Seattle, the Pac-10, now Pac-12, was definitely the elite conference to be in both as a player, as a student and as a coach. There was a high regard for the conference. And, more than anything, (it was) more respected on the court across the country.

"I think that respect has grown in the last 10 years. I think the conference being on TV a lot more has accelerated the growth of the conference, and why it's so competitive.

"More than anything you have great people. You have great people as leaders as coaches, and you have absolutely the best players in the country every night. When you do that, if you are a competitor, that’s why you sign up and go to a Pac-12 school, because you know that every single night when you play a Pac-12 opponent, you're going to face some of the best players in the country, if not the best player in the country.

"In addition, whether you are a player or a coach, you are going to coach against and play against a coach on the other team, who may be one of the best in in the game ever (like Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer)."

Great opponents, both players and coaches: "Obviously, ASU was always a big rivalry; not initially, but it got better. When Adia (Barnes) was playing, we never lost to ASU, which was a great thing. (Former ASU coach) Charli (Turner Thorne) did a great job for quite a while. We had a lot of good rivalries, obviously always playing UCLA and USC. I'd say Washington was a real good rivalry game, too. I just had a lot of respect for the other coaches.

"Tara has had a host of players. Kristin Folkl was one great player. Oh, my goodness. That kid was great in basketball and volleyball. Tara has always had a lot of good players. UCLA had good players. Natalie Williams. She was tough. Really, really tough. There were a lot of good players and it was fun.

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"I have very fond memories with my teams, which are personal, but even playing against other teams. I’ll give you an example. I was playing golf here in Tucson and I got paired up with this woman and turns out she was a player at Oregon! Some people, they don't talk to the opposing coach or whatever. I always made a point of talking to the kids from the other teams and giving them props when they did good.

"I have always had a good relationship with most of them. If I see them (now) even though they were opponents they've always been great with me."

On building Arizona: "I loved having good athletes, very versatile and long. That's what people would say about me and they knew I was an up-tempo type of coach and aggressive defensively. I loved it. I loved coaching my players. I know Adia feels the same way.

"To take something that wasn't really good — because when I took over Arizona it wasn't good at all — when you change it, and the program changes and is now respected and ranked and competitive, it's a great feeling as a staff and as a coach and definitely being part of those teams.

"Now, for me the best part is watching Adia take this program to another level. And she’s doing it every year. The hard part is once you get to the promised land, which she was there and lost by a point in the national championship game. (It's) the good and bad — that's your bar now.

"People expect that. She hasn't gotten out of the second round since that time. It's hard, but I think I think that they're going to be knocking on the door here shortly, whether it's this year or next year. There's a lot of things that need to go right. I would never have thought that year they went to the championship game and lost to Stanford, that they would have gotten that far. I thought Sweet 16, to be really honest.

"But when you get a team that's on a roll and confident, playing well and playing together, great things happen. I think that's the thing that's so rewarding for me. When I’m not calling games, I'm definitely an Arizona fan. It’s really fun to watch Adia grow as a leader, as a coach and as a person. And to watch her team. The best teams are always the ones that reflect your coach. It wouldn't surprise me if this team for this year is one that's going to reflect Adia in a lot of ways.”