Arizona sponsored its first womenβs basketball team 50 years ago, 1972, hired PE instructor Lois Sheldahl as its coach and won the βstate intercollegiate championship,β knocking off NAU and ASU in a tournament at Mesa Community College.
Not exactly the big leagues, right?
This was all a few months after Title IX legislation was enacted to provide female athletes equal opportunity in college sports, mandating that womenβs sports receive similar travel expenses, medical treatment, scholarship numbers and facilities as each institutionβs menβs teams.
By law, it guaranteed womenβs athletes everything but a place in the hearts of community sports fans.
That took a while. In some respects, it took 50 years.
If Lois Sheldahl and her star Wildcats basketball players of 1972 β Betty Barber, Bess Maxwell and Gail Tault β had been able to step into a time machine and observe Mondayβs NCAA Tournament basketball game between Arizona and North Carolina, Iβm guessing their first reaction wouldβve been:
The Cats have got to get better players.
That wouldβve been a normal reaction, but the ease with which North Carolina beat Arizona, 63-45, wasnβt indicative of the growth of UA womenβs basketball. It was probably the Wildcatsβ worst game of this season, and maybe last season, too. It felt like 2016 again, the pre-Adia Barnes period.
In an 11-minute, 31-second stretch of the first half, the Wildcats missed 12 consecutive shots and fell hopelessly behind. Season over. It almost made you ask how Barnesβ team won 21 games and spent three months ranked in the Top 10.
But there is much more to Arizonaβs early exit from the NCAA Tournament than just the end of the season. As the time-machine travelers from 1972 wouldβve seen, the final piece of the Title IX movement is now in place.
The Wildcats have won a place in the hearts of the Tucson community.
A crowd of 8,333 paid to watch Mondayβs game at McKale Center and they didnβt give up and go home after the Tar Heels surged to such leads as 23-9 and 46-27.
βThey didnβt have a lot to cheer for,β said Barnes. βSorry.β
With 3:54 remaining β North Carolina leading 54-39 β almost no one had left their seat. The noise was unabated, non-stop loud. It had been that way for the first 36 minutes, with fans standing, pleading for the Wildcats to rally.
They began to chant βUofA! UofA!ββ when it was 58-41 with 1:50 remaining. If that doesnβt shine a light on the 50th anniversary of Title IX, what does?
βYou want the NCAA games to feel special, and this one was special,β said North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart. βWomenβs basketballβs in the best place itβs ever been in.β
Cate Reese shoots the ball between North Carolina forward Anya Poole and guard Carlie Littlefield during Mondayβs NCAA Tournament game.
This was a βtweener year for Arizona womenβs basketball. Although the standard line was often that the Wildcats were somehow better than last seasonβs Final Four runner-up, it was never believable. All-American point guard Aari McDonald was too good to replace; that became painfully clear down the stretch. Arizona lost five of its last nine games and became the Gang That Couldnβt Shoot Straight. Four times, they scored 51 points or fewer.
But the story of this season is that the Tucson community upped its support of womenβs basketball, drawing 17,906 for two NCAA Tournament games, which was doubly impressive because in some cases, prices of tickets almost doubled from the regular season.
The Tar Heelsβ Banghart spoke about her teamβs surge to the Sweet 16 by saying it was mostly a product of βroster reconstruction.β Thatβs what Barnes will do between now and November.
It wonβt be the conventional way of remaking a roster because Arizona returns 10 of its 12 leading scorers β 83% of its points β including starters Shaina Pellington, Bendu Yeaney, Cate Reese and Lauren Ware. When fall practice begins in October, Barnes will blend four elite recruits into the system, a group easily ranked the No. 1 recruiting class in school history and among the top 10 nationally.
If Minnesota forward Maya Nnaji, New York City guard Paris Clark, Florida guard Kailyn Gilbert and Canadian guard Lemyah Hylton are as good as their top-50 recruiting rankings, it would be the most loaded roster in the UAβs 50 years of womenβs basketball.
And that doesnβt include potential additions from the NCAA transfer portal, of which Barnes has been prolific. The seven or eight players who make Barnesβ rotation next year are likely to be as talented β as a core β as any rotation in UA womenβs basketball history.
βWeβll make some changes in our roster,β said Barnes.
The first chore is to find a go-to scorer. Unless you have an Aari McDonald, you need at least two reliable scorers to even think about getting to the Sweet 16. Arizona has none.
When Barnes asked about her clubβs late-season fade, she made a downward motion with her hand. She said that losing three games felt like 10.
βThatβs not going to happen again,β she said. βWeβre not going to have a team where that can happen.β
There was no sweet finish to Arizonaβs 2022 season. But next year the Sweet 16 might be a modest goal.
