Greg Hansen: Wildcats aiming big at the gate, and 'basketball town' is ready to help

Adia Barnes believes Arizona can break the Pac-12 record for women’s basketball attendance, a formula she says will require “a sellout or two and several other games drawing about 10,000.”

Is it really doable? The Wildcats have sold about 6,000 season tickets and are coming off a year in which they averaged 7,822 fans per game, the second-highest total in Pac-12 history.

The conference record almost seems out of reach; Oregon averaged 10,852 two years ago when it went 31-2 behind superstar guard Sabrina Ionescu. But don’t discount Barnes, who thinks big, dreams big and has the most talented roster at Arizona since the 1990s, and perhaps ever.

To understand what it means to even dream about averaging 10,000 fans per game in women’s college basketball, remember that Pac-12 women’s teams last year collectively averaged a bare 2,875. Nationally, the only team to average 10,000 or more was mighty South Carolina (12,268).

And remember that the UA women’s team has sold out just one game in history: a victory in the 2019 WNIT championship game over Northwestern. Attendance: 14,644.

What makes this discussion a bit difficult to believe is that as recently as 2018 the Wildcats went 2-16 in the conference and 6-24 overall. But winning changes everything, right? I’m not suggesting UA women’s basketball followers are strictly fans of winning — that they would flee from McKale Center if the Wildcats were to suffer a losing season — but there’s a history of that in Tucson, and everywhere.

After making McKale Center one of the nation’s hot spots in the Fred Snowden years of the 1970s, McKale became something of a ghost town in the early ’80s, when Snowden lost his touch.

Average men’s attendance crashed to 6,224 in the 1982-83 season — coach Ben Lindsey’s team went 4-24 — and it took Lute Olson five years of winning until he averaged 100% capacity, in the 1987-88 Final Four season.

It’s not ridiculous to compare Barnes’ climb to that of Olson in the 1980s, and who could’ve guessed that on the day Barnes was hired in April 2016?

Nobody. Maybe not even Barnes herself.

Arizona has led the Pac-12 in men’s basketball attendance for 37 consecutive years, replacing Oregon State, of all teams, which had a historic run of basketball excellence in the early ’80s. And there doesn’t appear to be a Pac-12 men’s team with any possibility of breaking Arizona’s 37-year streak.

Utah? The Utes drew 13,000 or more for eight seasons in the 1990s, but once Rick Majerus left his coaching job, Utah seemed to become a football school overnight. Now, the Utes struggle not just to win, but to draw even 8,000 on a good night at Huntsman Center.

UCLA? The Bruins have drawn just 19 crowds in excess of 13,000 since the arena opened in the 1960s and have never averaged more than 12,700.

Oregon? Matthew Knight Arena, which opened in 2011, doesn’t have the “it” factor that old Mac Court did. It’s an off-campus facility with a capacity of 12,364. The Ducks have sold out just 19 games in 11 seasons. Perhaps that’s what you expect in a football town.

Tucson remains the only true “basketball town” in the Pac-12.

Basketball town?

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Here’s how you know you live in a basketball town: Only eight schools averaged more than 20,000 in combined attendance for men’s and women’s college basketball last season.

The list:

Arkansas: 23,205

Kentucky: 23,107

Iowa State: 22,433

Louisville: 21,603

South Carolina: 21,989

Arizona: 21,236

Syracuse: 21,130

Iowa: 20,329

However, the above list of eight schools is a bit misleading because the men’s teams at Kentucky, Arkansas and Syracuse all averaged at least 19,000 fans per game. Their women’s basketball programs struggled to fill even 20% of the schools’ massive arenas.

That would suggest Iowa State, South Carolina, Arizona, Louisville and Iowa are the Big Five in local interest.

Given Barnes’ aggressive nature, her oft-repeated desire to fill McKale Center, this could be the year that Arizona rises to No. 1 in college basketball with the highest combined men’s and women’s basketball attendance.

It would take an average women’s crowd of about 10,000 fans per game at McKale Center, and there is reason to think it’s possible. One, women’s Pac-12 games are played on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, which means there is almost no conflict with a televised UA men’s road game. Two, tickets for women’s games at McKale Center are significantly cheaper than men’s games.

Remaining season tickets in the lower and middle sections are priced from $80-$95 for a 15-game schedule. Single-game tickets are $10 to $12. By comparison, a ticket to Tuesday’s men’s exhibition game against Western Oregon starts at $27.

Is Tucson a basketball town? Absolutely. Can it be No. 1 in all of college basketball, for men and women? It’s on the radar.