Adia Barnes agreed to meet for coffee early one morning in September 2016. She was two months away from coaching her first basketball game at Arizona and I asked her to pick a good place.
“Let’s meet on the breezeway at the Library, next to Starbucks,” she said. “It should be quiet there.”
For about 90 minutes the greatest women’s basketball player in UA history sipped her coffee without interruption. True, it had been 18 years since she scored the last of her 2,237 points in a Sweet 16 loss to mighty UConn, but I was surprised none of the hundreds of people passing through the breezeway seemed to recognize her.
Barnes was more concerned about the UA’s 7-47 conference record the previous three seasons and how to fix it.
“Did you know when I took this job not a single recruit had been signed?” she said with an incredulous tone. “Not a single player for the Class of 2016 or the Class of 2017.”
I remember the way she arched both eyes, as if to say “We’re toast.”
Against all odds, she turned that burnt toast into a Sweet 16 celebration more quickly than anyone could’ve imagined or expected. She turned it into record crowds at McKale Center, a victory over No. 4 Stanford, a diet of exposure on ESPN2 and long-term residence in the top 10.
Barnes has put a new dimension to winning. She has done it in such a charming way that most of the basketball fans in Tucson would cheerfully buy her a cup of Starbucks every day of the week.
After the Wildcats chopped up and then chopped down No. 2 seeded Texas A&M 74-59 in the Sweet 16 Saturday in San Antonio, it wasn’t just a celebration but an appreciation.
No victory in 48 years of UA women’s basketball approaches Saturday’s bolt to the Elite Eight. It wasn’t just a bolt, it was lightning. It was defense, it was speed, it was daring, it was an exhibition of defense that would make the Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain defense take notes.
If you’re a statistics and analytics person, you have probably never seen basketball numbers like this: When Arizona built a resounding 62-48 lead with 6:30 remaining, the Wildcats had scored 22 points off Texas A&M turnovers.
The Aggies had scored no points off Arizona turnovers. It would end 28-2, Arizona.
That’s because UA senior point guard Aari McDonald played what was surely the single greatest game in Arizona women’s basketball history. She is maybe 5-feet-5-inches tall. She is Kyler Murray without a helmet.
McDonald proved that speed beats size and that heart beats reputation. She was disruptive and dominant.
After the Wildcats beat BYU in Thursday’s Round of 32, Barnes seemed to take exception to questions that suggested the UA had reached its limit because it’s not a sweet-shooting team. It’s a team that shot 26 percent in a loss to Stanford, and a combined 27 percent from 3-point distance in their five losses.
“Where we have disadvantages, we have advantages,” she said. “We’re a very good defensive team. We can find ways to win. It might be ugly but turn you over and press you and make you do what you don’t want to do.”
What those in her audience didn’t realize was that she was describing the way the Wildcats would beat Texas A&M. No one will say it was ugly.
Until Saturday, I thought the best NCAA Tournament performance in UA history was Derrick Williams 32-point brilliance in the 2011 Sweet 16 against No, 1 Duke. He swished 6 of 11 3-pointers that night. On Saturday, McDonald matched it, 6 of 12 from 3-point distance, scoring 31 points.
“When Aari came to Arizona, we put it on her back,” Barnes said after Saturday’s game. “I asked her to carry us and she has carried us the last three years.”
Check out these numbers from Saturday’s victory: Texas A&M shot a higher percentage (47 to 46) and outrebounded Arizona 37-29. But the game wasn’t close in the final 15 minutes.
McDonald isn’t a pure shooter yet she led the Pac-12 in scoring three years in a row. She doesn’t shoot, she wins.
On that day at Starbucks, Barnes had finally assembled a five-woman recruiting class. It offered hope that Arizona wouldn’t finish in last place again. But, incredibly, that recruiting class went poof.
Florida’s Kiana Chew (now Kiana Barkhoff) transferred to Mercer. Oklahoma’s Mallory Vaughn elected not to play college basketball at all. Marlee Kyles transferred to Colorado State, Samantha Fatkin transferred to Montana and Bria Rice transferred to Long Beach State.
How do you survive that?
On February 10, 2017, Barnes and the talented-shy Wildcats were routed 91-55 in Seattle by Barnes’ old team, the Washington Huskies, The UW’s freshman point guard, Aari McDonald, scored 13 points that night.
Barnes had helped to recruit McDonald to Washington before taking a chance on returning to her alma mater. When Washington coach Mike Neighbors left Seattle to become the head coach at Arkansas two months later, Barnes phoned McDonald.
Would you like to be a Wildcat?
Today, four years later, the block A logo at Arizona stands for two things: Aari and Adia.
