Womenβs college basketball gets such little attention outside of UConn, South Carolina and a few other precincts that when undefeated and rising power Kansas beat Southeast Missouri State on Sunday, no one asked KU coach Brandon Schneider about Thursdayβs game at No. 12 Arizona.
Schneiderβs press conference lasted just 4 minutes, 16 seconds.
A lot of womenβs basketball coaches donβt even have postgame Q&A sessions because sometimes there is no one to ask questions. I mean, USC is averaging 447 in home attendance, Colorado is at 785 and certified Pac-12 contender 7-1 Washington State β an NCAA Tournament team last year, boasting one of the nationβs top players, Charlisse Leger-Walker β is averaging just 618 fans in the Palouse.
Part of the issue at Kansas is that the Jayhawks are one of the Big Four, forever a blueblood among bluebloods in menβs college basketball.
And part of the reason Schneider and KU womenβs hoops has such a low profile is that when Schneider was hired in the spring of 2015, he put together the following Big 12 records, in order:
0-18.
2-16.
3-15.
2-16.
4-14.
3-15.
No wonder his lightly-attended press conference lasted 4:16. An even bigger wonder is how any coach was not fired during that 14-94 streak of conference games.
Such is the perceived lack of urgency/importance of womenβs basketball in most areas. Before Adia Barnes was hired at Arizona, the Wildcats employed a coach, Niya Butts, who went 33-111 in Pac-12 games before being fired after eight frustrating seasons.
All of that changed when Barnes, Arizonaβs career scoring record holder, was hired in the spring of 2017. She referred to the challenge as βthe climbβ and in five years Arizona had climbed so high that it made the Final Four and played Stanford in the national championship game.
Thus, playing an undefeated team like Kansas on Thursday wasnβt dreaded; it was lick-your-chops time.
Big mistake.
Arizona coach Adia Barnes maps out her strategy during a third-quarter timeout against Kansas.
When KU showed up at McKale Center, a robust crowd of 7,371 settled in, anticipating the Wildcatsβ first game of true significance this season. Arizonaβs nonconference schedule had been so uninspiring, so weak, that the Wildcats had outscored opponents by an average score of 83-59, forcing 22 turnovers per game.
No one suggested that Kansas was a designated victim, but the Wildcats were eager to play someone of value, especially at home, where they have gone 46-5 dating to 2019 while becoming a certified Top-25 program.
No wonder more than 7,000 people delayed their dinner plans and fought rush-hour traffic to get to McKale Center.
What happened in the next two hours surely caught everyone, including KU coach Schneider and his players, by surprise.
I had to rub my eyes to believe it. With 3:53 remaining, Barnes called timeout. Her team trailed 68-41. She stood with her three assistant coaches a few yards away from the team huddle for maybe 30 seconds. What could they have possibly been discussing?
Would anyone notice if we sneak out the back door?
Kansas won 77-50.
Barnes spent the next 30 minutes talking to her team and when she finally arrived at a Q&A session with reporters, she was actually upbeat, almost poetic.
She referred to her teamβs faceplant as being βout-muscled and out-hustled.β
βWe missed 12 layups in the first half,β she said. βIt looked like weβd never practiced or prepared.
βThey literally jammed it down our throats.β
Arizona forward Cate Reese is fouled by Kansas center Taiyanna Jackson on Thursday.
This is when Barnes really earns her $1 million-a-year contract. Rather than bite her lip and offer a grim expression at her post-game media conference, she took a higher road.
βWhen I look at the stat sheet, Iβm totally accountable,β she said. βWeβre not going to have games like this at McKale.β
Arizona has some serious issues to overcome. It is not a good shooting team. Its offense gets stuck β shot-clock expiring β far too often. It doesnβt have size or depth inside. And the home schedule is going to be far more difficult than a game against a vastly improved Kansas team.
In the current AP Top 25, Stanford is No. 2, UCLA is No. 13, Utah No. 15 and Oregon No. 17. Today, itβs difficult to imagine Arizona winning any of those games at McKale given Thursdayβs flat performance.
Thatβs coaching, right? Expect the unexpected. Now itβs up to Barnes to morph into the fix-it role and see how the Wildcats respond in their showdown next Sunday against No. 18 Baylor in Texas.
βI refuse to sit in McKale and watch another team pound us,β said Barnes. βWeβre not going to be a team that lays down.β
For Arizona, the season begins now.
McKale Center was built at the University of Arizona in the early 1970s. There have been updates through the years.
