Adia Barnes gets snubbed in the Conference Coach of the Year race

It was a great 2019-20 season for the Arizona Women’s Basketball team, and despite all their success, Adia Barnes did not win the conference coach of the year.

The 2019-20 Women’s Basketball regular season is officially over and with the tournaments soon starting, the awards and accolades are piling in for the Arizona Women’s Basketball team, except for head coach Adia Barnes.

Perhaps in one of the biggest robberies in college basketball, the Pac-12 Conference made their  selection for conference coach of the year, and surprisingly not winning the award was Barnes.

Arizona Wildcats

The award instead went to Oregon head coach, Kelly Graves.

Now granted this isn’t to say that Graves wasn’t deserving by any means, and when you finish 28-2 (17-1) on the year, I could certainly see the case as to why he was selected. However, the decision is a bit perplexing to us fans given all the results.

For starters, let’s recap as to what Barnes inherited. Prior to her arrival for the 2016-17 season, the Wildcats went just a combined 55-99 from 2011-16.

And since taking over, the Wildcats have gone a combined 67-59, including a 47-19 record over the last two seasons, which includes the results from their NIT Championship season last year, and the results from this season so far as well!

So what makes Barnes more deserving than Graves? Well in addition to what she’s done after inheriting the conference doormat, keep in mind that the Wildcats were picked to finish the season 6th overall in the conference, and exceeded expectations by finishing 4th overall.

She beat three, Top 10 teams, got the Wildcats ranked in the Top 25 for the first time in 15 years, will take Arizona to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005, and also did this without the countries’ ‘best college basketball player’.

That’s right, while Aari McDonald is a fantastic player that we are lucky to have, she isn’t a Sabrina Ionescu (the No. 1 college basketball player in the country).

Oregon was predicted to win the Pac-12, they were one of the nations top ranked teams, and have three players in the running for the Naismith Women’s Player of the Year Award. Given the talent that Graves has, and the expectation was for him to win, is it really surprising his team performed well? No, everyone knew Oregon would be good.

Compared to Barnes, she has done a tremendous job in getting the Wildcats not only ranked, but accomplishing what they’ve done in one of the toughest conferences in the country. Barnes not winning is a joke!

Despite the snub by the conference, a few positive things DID happen for the program!

• McDonald was named the Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year
• Cate Reese and McDonald were named to the All Pac-12 Team
• McDonald and Sam Thomas were named to the Pac-12 All Defensive Team
• Helena Pueyo was named Honorable Mention to the Pac-12 All Freshman Team

We are proud of our Wildcats and their accomplishments thus far! Up next will be the Conference Tournament, where they will travel to Vegas to hopefully improve their standing, while getting ready for the NCAA Tournament. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!