TUCSON, AZ- Experiencing their best season since 2010-11, the Arizona Women’s Basketball team has best attendance in 14 years!
Things are certainly on the rise in Tucson! After having their best season since 2010-11, the Arizona Women’s Basketball team saw improved attendance numbers as well better basketball.
Hey, changing the culture isn’t easy, but Wildcat head coach Adia Barnes is doing some impressive things here with the Wildcats. The overall talent is getting better, the product is getting better and as a result, the interest and fan engagement is getting better too!
Arizona Wildcats
While the Women’s team certainly doesn’t quite draw the same attention as the Men’s team, or even compared to powerhouse UCONN, the once storied program has certainly lost some luster over the years.
Barnes took over the team in 2016-17, and in her first year as head coach, the Wildcats finished the season 14-16. The next year was a rough one, as the Cats went just 6-24. This year, Arizona finished a respectable 18-13, and will likely make the NIT Tournament!
A great feat for a program that had seen so much basketball ineptitude.
This past year, the team was largely led by redshirt sophomore Aari McDonald, if you may recall, as well as true freshman, and former McDonald’s All-American, Cate Reese!
Behind all that has been the support of the fans!
In that first season under Barnes, Arizona averaged just 1,839 fans per game at home. Last year, the attendance was slightly up at 1,933 per game at home.
This year Arizona had their best attendance in 14 years! During the 18-13 season, the Wildcats averaged 2,203 fans per game!
HUGE shoutout to our amazing fans‼️
— Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaWBB) March 11, 2019
This year, our average attendance was the highest it has been in 14 seasons.
We can't thank everyone enough‼️ #MadeForIt | #BearDown pic.twitter.com/kXBcomOMhd
This is an amazing feat, and is hopefully only a small preview of the bigger and better things still to come for the program.
As it stands, Arizona virtually returns all of their top contributors from the past season, and will add quite a few international players. Should the Cats improve over the off-season, chances are the product will be even better next year, and so will the attendance numbers as well!
At Zona Zealots, we are excited by the growth of this program, and can’t wait to see how they get better from here on out! Bear Down, Arizona!