Esmery Martinez arrives at the UA following an all-conference career at West Virginia.

 Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star

The Star's longtime columnist checks in with thoughts about the Wildcats' women's basketball team, his night in Section 121, and ex-Toros manager Rick Sweet's return to the top of Triple-A.

Cate Reese roars during media day. Reese, the Wildcats’ senior forward, posted a double-double in Sunday’s win over Baylor in Dallas.

Adia Barnes must make puzzle pieces fit

A few minutes before Adia Barnes began a busy Friday afternoon at her annual media day duties, followed by practice, a UA trainer stopped to offer her a fruit smoothie.

“I need it,” she said. “I’ve been going nonstop. Did we even have a summer?”

The mother of 7-year old Matteo and 2-year-old Capri, Barnes finally had a minute to take a breath and put some perspective to the most exceptional recruiting class in UA women’s basketball history.

“It seems like it’s been forever since we were so bad (6-24 in 2018),” she said. “None of this came easy.”

Barnes began practice last week with five coveted recruits: two McDonald’s All-Americans and double-figure scorers who transferred to Arizona from West Virginia, Oklahoma State and Arizona State.

But the foundation of Barnes’ program, one that has won 90 games the last four seasons and finished No. 2 at the 2021 Final Four, are seniors Cate Reese, Shaina Pellington and Helena Pueyo.

“It’s exciting, we’ve come so far,” said Reese, an All-Pac-12 forward beginning her fifth Arizona season. “There weren’t many people who believed we’d get it done.”

It would be a surprise if the Wildcats aren’t ranked in the Top 10, or close, when the Top 25 poll is announced later this month.

Now that the recruiting season is over, Barnes immediately transitions to the coaching season. As much as she is eager to put the pieces into place, she is acutely aware that she must put them in the right places.

Barnes’ most difficult assignment all year is likely to be distributing playing time between five returning players and seven coveted newcomers. Determining a seven- or eight-player rotation is going to be sensitive when 12 players believe they are good enough to be on the court.

That’s one thing Barnes has learned as a head coach. The NCAA permits women’s basketball teams to have 15 scholarship players. She has 12, having learned the hard way that it’s almost impossible to keep 15 ballplayers happy.

“I think we’ll mesh,” said Reese. “I don’t think it’ll be an issue.”

Or will it?

McDonald’s All-Americans Maya Nnaji, a center, and guard Paris Clark didn’t come to Tucson to sit on the bench. ASU transfer Jade Loville, the Pac-12’s second-leading scorer last season, is a force. West Virginia transfer Esmery Martinez, was an All-Big 12 player who averaged a double-double per game. Oklahoma State transfer Lauren Fields averaged 15.4 points for the Cowboys.

This is how it must be at Stanford or Oregon every year. Trying to figure out where all the talented pieces best fit.

“I came here because I wanted to play for a winning program,” said Clark, the McDonald’s All-American from New York City. “It’s exciting. Every day at practice is going to be a fight.”

To add to the unknown, five-star recruit Montaya Dew of Las Vegas has committed to Arizona and intends to enroll in January.

No, this isn’t 2018 any longer.

“You want to play your freshmen because if you don’t, you’re going to lose them,” said Barnes, who acknowledged that the culture of college basketball in 2022 — college sports altogether — had changed so much the last decade that “if you don’t play, you leave.”

The Wildcats open the season with an exhibition game against West Texas A&M on Oct. 27. That leaves Barnes and her staff a bit more than three weeks to put the pieces of the most talented UA women’s basketball roster in history in order.

Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, right, talks with former UA and NBA standout Richard Jefferson at Friday’s Red-Blue Game.

My view from the cheap seats

Friday night, tor the first time since Lute Olson arrived at McKale Center, I did not sit at the press table. I sat in Section 121. Nosebleeds. It was actually an enjoyable experience, but I wish I had been smart enough to take binoculars.

Nevertheless, I took notes. Here are my observations from on high:

1. Oumar Ballo has improved so much that teammate Azuolas Tubelis told 1450-AM radio last week that “he’s better than Christian Koloko.” What convinced me that Ballo will be the Pac-12’s best big man was a spin move he made from the foul line, dribbling through traffic for an easy layup Friday night. Plus, Ballo clearly has more confidence shooting near the basket than he did a year ago. The Pac-12 has two 7-footers who were McDonald’s All-Americans last year — Oregon’s Kel’el Ware and UCLA’s Adem Bona — but Ballo has a huge head start over both.

2. So much of Arizona’s long-range success depends on point guard Kerr Kriisa improving from his sophomore season. The Wildcats don’t need Kriisa to be an all-conference player or a TV star. They need him to be like Pac-12 Networks analyst Matt Muehlebach of 1990 and 1991. Kriisa averaged 9.7 points last year but shot 34% from the field (33% from 3-point range). As an Arizona junior and senior in 1990 and ’91, Muehlebach improved noticeably, averaging 11.3 and 10.1 points, shooting 47% and 51%, including 43% from 3-point distance. Muehlebach was a glue guy on a roster that included future NBA big men Bison Dele, Sean Rooks and the league’s player of the year, Chris Mills. That’s what Kriisa needs to be: a latter-day Glue Guy.

3. Freshman 7-footer Henri Veesaar has the look of a go-to guy and first-round NBA draft pick — some day. But this UA team has such depth that Veesaar might not average more than 20-24 minutes per game.

4. Mr. Casual, Tommy Lloyd, wore a navy blue hoodie with a large cactus/sunset logo of the 1990s Wildcats. Lloyd has bought in to the UA’s basketball tradition unlike Sean Miller, who seemed to resist Olson’s presence and the success that preceded him to Tucson. Lloyd? He doesn’t fear it. On Friday, Lloyd wasn’t wearing his game face like he will beginning next month. That’s why I didn’t put much stock in Arizona launching too many ill-advised 3-pointers. No reason to get burned out in October. Lloyd is just getting started. He is 47. Olson wasn’t hired at Arizona until he was 48.

5. You can’t diminish the presence of ex-Wildcat NBA standouts Lauri Markkanen, Deandre Ayton, Richard Jefferson and Jason Terry at Friday’s game. Five-star recruits Zoom Diallo and Carter Bryant, who sat courtside, were introduced to the former Wildcats. Can you imagine the impression that it left?

Ironwood Ridge, led by first-year coach Dale Stott, is 0-4 to start the 2022 season.

Big boys struggling on field

The undeniable changes to Tucson’s high school football landscape are on full display this season. Former powerhouses and state champions Ironwood Ridge and Mountain View are a combined 1-7. But the change that turns my head most is to see that Sahuaro lost 57-14 to small-town Thatcher on Friday night. In the 1980s and ’90s, Sahuaro won a combined 173 games and always seemed to be a state power under coaches Howard Breinig, Will Kreamer and Nemer Hassey. But that was 20 years ago. Times change. High school football in Tucson is struggling to find a path back to relevance.

Terry Francona close to Hall of Fame lock

Tucsonan Terry Francona managed the Cleveland Guardians to the American League Central championship last week. This will be Francona’s 11th berth in the playoffs since he managed Boston to the 2004 world championship. At 63, Francona is now legitimately in play to someday be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Through Friday he had managed 1,871 victories, No. 16 in history. If the UA’s 1980 NCAA player of the year manages another two years, he should reach 2,000. The only managers to reach 2,000 career victories who are not yet in the Hall of Fame are Astros skipper Dusty Baker and former Padres and Giants boss Bruce Bochy, both of whom are locks to be inducted in the upcoming years.

Andre Haymore, right, was a popular former Amphi football player.

Andre Haymore will be missed

Sad to hear that Andre Haymore, an all-city running back and sprinter at Amphitheater High School in 1992 and 1993, died last week. Haymore had the difficult assignment of replacing prep All-American running backs Michael and Mario Bates at Amphi in 1991, yet he responded big time. A three-year starter for Vern Friedli, Haymore rushed for 1,128 yards in 1992 and 1,185 a year later. Rather than accept scholarship offers to UNLV, San Diego State, Wyoming or Oregon State, Haymore chose to remain in Tucson. He became a firefighter and paramedic and, in his free time, became a popular local disc jockey. He was only 46.

Ex-Cat Jim Furyk hosts touney in Florida

Arizona’s 1992 NCAA championship golfer Jim Furyk is hosting the PGA Tour Champions’ Furyk and Friends event this week in Jacksonville, Florida. Furyk, 52, entered the 2022 season as perhaps the leading golfer on the Champions Tour, coming off a remarkable 2021 season in which he won two events, plus the U.S. Senior Open, and earned $3.1 million with 11 top-10 finishes. But this year Furyk has won just $338,836 and has just two top 10s and is No. 51 on the money list. Furyk’s Champions Tour event remains popular; the field this week includes Steve Stricker, Bernard Langer, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington.

Sweet return for ex-Toros manager

Rick Sweet was a 39-year-old up-and-comer in the winter of 1992 when the Tucson Toros hired him to be the manager of their Triple-A club. A few months later, Sweet managed the Toros to the ’93 Pacific Coast League championship. He never did get a big league managing gig, but on Saturday in Las Vegas, Sweet, now 72, managed the Nashville Sounds to the Triple-A championship game against the Durham Bulls. In ’93, I kidded Sweet that he benefited greatly from Arizona coach Jerry Kindall. That ’93 Toros championship team included ex-Wildcats Jack Daugherty, Tommy Barrett, Casey Candaele and Todd Trafton. Today, 30 years later, Candaele is the bench coach for the Toronto Blue Jays. More? Sweet’s pitching coach for the Toros’ ’93 championship team, Brent Strom, is now the pitching coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, about to turn 74 years young. Talk about staying power.

My two cents: Weak home schedules pock Pac-12

The Pac-12 last week released full schedules of all men’s basketball teams, and it’s a sobering look at how the nonconference season has diminished and that home games are no longer a priority.

There are only five Power Five teams playing in Pac-12 arenas this season: Tennessee, Kansas State, Auburn, TCU and Nebraska. Here are the top three home nonconference games for each Pac-12 team:

Arizona: Tennessee, Montana State and Utah Tech

Arizona State: NAU, Alcorn State and Grambling

Cal: Kansas State, Eastern Washington and Butler

Colorado: Nebraska, Colorado State and Northern Colorado

Oregon: Houston, UC Irvine and Nevada

Oregon State: Tulsa, Seattle and Portland State

Stanford: San Diego State, Pacific and Cal Poly

UCLA: Long Beach State, Pepperdine and Denver

USC: Auburn, Cal-Fullerton and Long Beach State

Utah: TCU, Idaho State and UTSA

Washington: Auburn, Seattle and Weber State

Washington State: Detroit, Eastern Washington and Texas State

At least the schedule-makers were mostly kind to Arizona when they assigned starting times. The only too-far-after dark home game times are against Washington (9 p.m.), Oregon (8:30 p.m,) and Tennessee (8:30 p.m.).

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Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711

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