Arizona's Adia Barnes Expects Wildcats To Return To Final Four

TUCSON, AZ — The course of Arizona's 2020-21 women's basketball season nearly changed on a 47-foot heave at the buzzer.

The shot, which was launched in triple-coverage by senior do-it-all guard Aari McDonald, clanged off the back iron and rolled off, ending the Wildcats' season in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament championship contest.

The missed basket, which sealed Arizona's 54-53 loss to fellow Pac-12 Conference foe, Stanford, sets the bar for the program going forward.

That's the takeaway at least from fifth-year head coach Adia Barnes, who expects the Wildcats to return to the sport's biggest stage in the near-distant future.

“This team is so special. I am so proud. We fought. We weren’t the best team in the tournament. No one thought we’d be here," Barnes said in a news conference. "We believed in each other. We didn’t play a great game, but we battled. We played our hearts out. We came within one possession.

"It doesn’t come down to the last possession, it comes down to all the little things. The margin of error is so slim in a championship game. This is unchartered territory for the Wildcats. Our program hadn’t been to the tournament in 15 years, 16 years. We’ve never played in the championship game."

Barnes' statements cast a light on what her team of 14 players accomplished this season.
The Wildcats not only made the 64-team women's tournament for the first time in 16 seasons in 2021 — they blew the doors open by rolling past the likes of Stony Brook, Brigham Young, Texas A&M, Indiana and 11-time national champion, UConn.

They transformed a city that had long been a men's hoops hotbed into one that was transfixed by every dribble that the Wildcats took in San Antonio.

But more than wins and losses, the Wildcats, in Barnes' opinion, showed the nation that they were far from a one-hit-wonder.

"I’ll remember just their fight. They always say, We have that dog mentality, I’ll remember that," Barnes said. "I remember when everybody around the country didn’t believe in us, counted us out, we believed in each other. We did that. We celebrated each other. We fought and we made it to the championship game. We’re not the best team in the country. We’re not the deepest team, not the tallest team. But we fought, we played some good defense. I think we played some of the best defense in the country."

Now, the task for Barnes and her staff is to find their way back to the promised land of the Final Four in 2022.

It'll be a tall task for sure, with McDonald, 2021 Pac-12 Player of the Year, and program pillars like forwards Sam Thomas and Trinity Baptiste all graduating.

Barnes isn't using the looming departure of the team's three leading scorers as a negative, however, as now the onus falls on underclassmen, like juniors Cate Reese and Shaina Pellington, to get the Wildcats back to the Final Four.

"The bar is high. We want to come back here," Barnes said. "I’m trying to build a program like [Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer] has, build a program like [UConn head coach Geno Auriemma] and [South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley], all the other trailblazers in this profession. I’m not satisfied with just being here, being in the tournament; I want to build a program where you’re surprised when they don’t win.

"Like when you look at Tara, Geno, Dawn, it’s surprising if they don’t win a championship; it’s a disappointment. I don’t want to come here once and be done. I want to be back here. I think in the future, Arizona will be back.”

McDonald, who finished off her collegiate career with 22 points against the Cardinal, scoring in double-digits for the 93rd consecutive game, agreed with Barnes' prognosis in her postgame comments.

"We're walking out of here with a lot of pride," McDonald said in a news conference. "We have nothing to hang our heads for. We competed. We battled. We just lost to a very great team, an experienced team with talented players in all positions. They're led by a pioneer to the game. We just look at the positives. Look how far we've come."