Arizona Basketball: Coach Adia Barnes building a whole new culture

A very enthusiastic Arizona Head Coach Adia Barnes spoke at Pac-12 Media Days in San Fransisco California, and it was inspirational.

Arizona Basketball head coach Adia Barnes, in her second year, coaching the Wildcats, and her two player representatives seniors Kat Wright and JaLea Bennett started off Pac-12 Media day in San Fransisco, Ca., this week.

Positive, excited, happy, optimistic, are all words that came to mind while listening to Coach Barnes talk to the media about her team. She believes that both culture and chemistry are very important to success for her team.

”The biggest thing has been the culture from the get-go. I just want to be known as a place with tremendous culture – we’re starting to build a legacy — Culture for me is everything. It doesn’t change in a year. It takes time, but it’s really evident this year.”

She feels at times last season she was drinking “out of a firehouse” but finds that this year it’s a little bit easier because she has more relationships with the players from last season.

Part of creating the new culture at Arizona, “So bringing in kids that are from a championship culture, kids that have won at the high school at AAU level, all of those things are essential for the culture.” Barnes feels JaLea is starting to speak her language and that gave her great feedback, “Okay, they actually listen to me.”

Arizona Wildcats Basketball

Culture – check! But what about chemistry? We asked Barnes about the chemistry on her team since players come from all over the country and the world now. As far as a special song, Barnes is looking for suggestions! So Wildcats fans, let’s help her out!

”I’ve never been on a championship team that doesn’t have a tremendous culture,” said Barnes, “So we’ve put a lot of energy in getting the right kids, not just in getting a great kid that’s not a great person. So that’s really important. I like to do a lot with teams. I’ll let them speak more.”

Barnes is doing a lot to help the teams chemistry. She moved a half mile from the school so the players could come and hang out at her house. She also did something awesome this season. She took her players on a retreat.

“It wasn’t just an ordinary retreat. I thought let me get players out of their element. I tell them they’re in a box, and how are you going to get out of the box? And some of the kids say, ‘I’m in the top left corner’ — So we did a retreat at a ranch. We did horse penning. We got into groups of four and had to corral the cows in the cages. So it was a team building, but it was great, it was a lot of fun.”

She feels it really changed the chemistry, “They were scared to death because some of the coaches were like: If I didn’t work for you, I would tell you heck no, I’m not doing this. I do believe it’s not one retreat that’s going to fix everything. I think it’s a deadly process.”

Coach Barnes also has her team eat breakfast together every day.

JaLea Bennett feels things have changed for the better, “I’ve been here for four years, and this is the first year where they like to get together, and we like to go to the locker room and have a movie night. We like to go to the movies, and we’ll go out to eat together as a team. We literally went to Mr. An’s an ate dinner without the staff.” She added that they even got dressed up for dinner.

Kat Wright added, “So we have dance parties in the locker room. And I don’t dance, but I will with them. So it’s just being comfortable around each other, and it’s all of those little things that we do, like the retreat and building off of that every single day.” Wright says she is inclusive and get outside of her element along with her teammates.

The seniors sat down with me so we could learn more about this season’s team, and it was a lot of fun. The ladies give you their social accounts. Please follow our Wildcats.

I had a chance to sit together with leaders JaLea Bennett and Kat Wright to find out all about their teammates; it was a lot of fun!

Must Read: More on ZZ about Arizona Basketball

Coach Barnes is changing the culture and is building chemistry. If the leaders on your team start building chemistry on their own, she is leading her team by example. We look forward to getting to know our Women’s basketball team more over the course of the season. It feels like with culture and chemistry this team can win, and why not Arizona?