Hansen's Top Teams, No. 87: Adia Barnes, Joan Bonvicini put Wildcats on map, in polls

In its first 25 seasons, 1972-1997, Arizona’s women’s basketball program was never ranked in the Top 25.

This isn’t to suggest that the school’s administration didn’t take the sport seriously, but in 1974-75, Arizona hired a coach, Nancy Trego, who had never coached the sport before.

Trego, hired from within the school’s PE department, went 25-39. Her successor, Lori Woodman, a softball/volleyball coach at College of the Redwoods, went 15-34, followed by Judy LeWinter, who went 37-100.

Finally, in 1991, after coach June Olkowski completed a 34-82 period, Arizona got serious about women’s hoops. It hired two-time Final Four coach Joan Bonvicini away from Long Beach State and Bonvicini gathered herself for one of the most challenging rebuilding jobs in school history, any sport.

It wasn’t a quick fix. Bonvicini’s first four Arizona teams went 24-48 in Pac-10 play.

But after recruiting the core of the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament team, 1996-97 — Adia Barnes, Lisa Griffith, Reshea Bristol, Monica Crank, Felicity Willis and Marte Alexander — the Wildcats opened the 1997-98 season ranked No. 14 in the AP poll, its first-ever national ranking.

They didn’t disappoint.

The Wildcats of 1997-98 beat No. 12 Nebraska and No. 7 Washington before a showdown with Pac-10 mega-power Stanford on Jan. 12 at McKale Center. The Cardinal had beaten Arizona 22 consecutive times and had a 48-game winning streak in the Pac-10.

Yet Tucsonans were so slow to buy in that only 2,058 attended that night’s classic, won on a buzzer-beater 3-pointer by Bristol, 91-90. As the team dogpiled in an impromptu mid-court celebration, even Bonvicini joined the scrum.

The Star’s Shannon Conner wrote it was “the biggest victory in the program’s history.” No one could dispute that.

Adia Barnes drives down the floor during a 1998 NCAA Tournament win over Virginia. Barnes, the Pac-10's Player of the Year as a senior, led the Wildcats to the 2021 national championship game as a coach.
James S. Wood, Arizona Daily Star 1998

A more important game arrived in March, when the Wildcats played host to the NCAA Tournament. Arizona beat Santa Clara in the opener and then braced for a Round of 32 game against No. 17 Virginia.

“We’re working on creating our own legacy,” said Bonvicini. “But this game isn’t about a legacy, it’s about now.”

A record crowd of 4,693 attended. No one was more prepared for the big game that Barnes, a senior who was the Pac-10’s Player of the Year. In her final home game, Barnes — now the UA’s head coach — scored 21 points and had eight rebounds in the first half. Arizona rolled to a 94-77 victory.

Barnes had endured an 11-19 season as a freshman, but went on to score 2,237 points, which remains a school record.

“There probably was some intimidation when I was a freshman,” said Barnes. “But now we feel we can compete with anyone in the nation.”

Arizona advanced to face third-seeded UConn in the Sweet 16 in Dayton, Ohio, where it lost to Geno Auriemma’s Huskies. Arizona finished 23-7.

To put the ‘98 season in historical perspective, the UA’s final ranking of No. 9 was its highest until Barnes coached the Wildcats to the No. 7 ranking in November of 2020. She gained a measure of revenge against UConn, upsetting the No. 1 Huskies in an epic Final Four showdown in San Antonio.

Arizona finished No. 2, losing in the Final Four championship game to Stanford.

Bonvicini, who is now an insurance executive in Tucson, coached Arizona to the 2004 Pac-10 championship, the only such title in school history. She left the UA after the 2008 season, then spent seven years as head coach of Seattle University. She completed her career with 701 victories, ranking 18th in women’s college basketball history.