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Mechelle VoepelESPN.com
When Adia Barnes became head coach of Arizona women’s basketball in 2016, everyone she knew seemed to think it was a mistake, even if it was her alma mater.
“When I took the job it was a bad job,” said Barnes. “Everyone said, ‘Don’t take it.’ All my mentors, friends who are legends in the game … said it was a bad job, you can’t win, it’s hard to recruit there. “
Still, Barnes’ Wildcats No. 3 seed are heading to the Women’s NCAA Elite Eight, and on Monday they will face another team to face a regional final for the first time in program history: No. 4 seed Indiana.
The Mercado Regional saw its top two seeds, NC State and Texas A&M, go to Indiana and Arizona on Saturday, two schools with storied men’s basketball histories as national champions. And now they are writing their own history on the women’s side.
“The state of Indiana is basketball,” said Hoosiers coach Teri Moren, an Indiana resident who played collegiate at Purdue. “Tradition has always been on the men’s side. We wanted to build our own.”
Indiana (2018) and Arizona (2019) have taken steps in that direction by winning WNIT titles over the past two years. Those championships gave both programs the necessary post-season success to learn from.
This is the first time since 1997, when Notre Dame faced George Washington, that two Elite Eight first-timers have met in a regional final. The Irish won that match and then lost in the national semifinals. But Notre Dame has since won NCAA titles in 2001 and 2018 and has become a national powerhouse.
Indiana born Hoosiers security guard Ali Patberg began her college career at Notre Dame in 2015. But she sustained an ACL injury that ended what would have been her freshman season before it began. After playing at Notre Dame the following season, Patberg said her confidence had cratered and she was transitioning.
“She was broken when she got to Indiana,” said Moren. But as long as she had someone who was willing to work and be in the gym with her and love her and laugh with her, we just watched her blossom for us at the kid I saw playing in high school so fearless. “
Patberg led the Hoosiers on Saturday with 17 points in their 73-70 win over NC State.
“My journey has been very different,” said Patberg. ‘But, you know, it has been perfect. I’ve had a lot of hard fights early on. But I came to Indiana where they believed in me. “
Arizona made an earlier Sweet 16 in Barnes’s senior year, 1998, when it lost to UConn in the regional semifinals. She was the Pac-10 Player of the Year and played in the WNBA from 1998-2004, where she won her final season in the league with Seattle. She also played abroad before starting coaching. She was an assistant in Washington in 2016 when the Huskies ran to their first Women’s Final Four, and Barnes left for Arizona shortly after.
Her first season, 2016-17, was tough, as the Wildcats went 14-16. It was more difficult in 2017-18, when they went 6-24. But on the bench that season was security guard Aari McDonald, who had come from Washington – where she was Pac-12 freshman of the year 2017 – and was serving her transfer season.
With McDonald in the lineup for the past three years, the Wildcats went 24-13 (winning a WNIT title), 24-7 and now 19-5 and one win away from the Final Four.
On Saturday, Pac-12 Player of the Year McDonald had one of the best games of her career at the perfect time for the Wildcats: 31 points and five rebounds in a 71-59 win over Texas A&M. Defensively, she helped Aggies guard Jordan Nixon hold to three points after Nixon scored 35 in the second round.
“I knew what it would be like to switch to Arizona,” McDonald said. “I had to take everything with a grain of salt, I have to be positive knowing that I was outside. I knew I had to get better, make my teammates better.
“What a feeling. I’m just speechless. It’s crazy. It’s exciting. It was great. It was a great ride. It’s not over yet.”