Faced with Adversity, Arizona Women’s Basketball looks to Bounce Back

Dropping two of their past three games, Arizona Women’s Basketball will look for some home cooking to bounce back and reset. 

In any good sequel, the hero is faced with a quite challenging dose of adversity before rising above to reach their goals, and it appears the Arizona Women’s Basketball program has reached that spot in the 2021-22 season after falling to USC and Oregon, and barely squeaking past Oregon State.

Road matchups are a unique animal in the Pac-12 no matter the size of the target on your back, but the target on the Wildcats has grown exponentially over the past year.

After tasting defeat for the first time this season, how the Wildcats bounce back as they return home for a Friday night showdown with Utah should show us just how ready this year’s version of the program is for March Madness.

The good news out of the road trip was that the play was still good except for some uncharacteristic lapses that ultimately caused Arizona a couple of games.

The reason that this is good is that the issues that seemed to cause the Lady Wildcats’ defeats are relatively easy to fix, as it could be as simple as a little better focus on their assignments in the defensive end.

One thing for sure is you can all but guarantee that Head Coach Adia Barnes will light a fire under the Arizona Women’s Basketball team.

The main goal at hand is still very much attainable for Arizona, especially as the pressure of being one of the remaining undefeated teams in the county is now gone. And we are sure coach Barnes will have them focused once again.

Cate Reese Becoming the Leader of the Wildcats Offense

One of the biggest concerns coming into the 2021-22 season was replacing the scoring that was lost by the departure of All-American Aari McDonald.

Senior forward Cate Reese has let her play on the court take complete control of the post and has not allowed for the Wildcats or fans to think of how great the past was, but rather dream of an even brighter present and future.

Averaging 14.4 ppg on the season, Reese has at times this season turned into a walking bucket and has shown to be very capable of taking over games just like some of her counterparts on the men’s team. She is a big part of turning this season into one of the best all-around seasons collectively of basketball that Tucson has ever seen.

Adia Barnes’ Emotions Get Best Of Her

Obviously, it is less than ideal when a coach goes off and gets caught in an emotional spat like Barnes got caught in during the game against Oregon the other night. However, like everything else that happened in the game, it is something that likely won’t continue to percolate as despite questionable officiating the Wildcats still should have won this game.

I would expect a different outcome when the Ducks make the return trip to Tucson on February 4.

https://twitter.com/AdiaBarnes/status/1482555781971005442

This is one thing I do know, and it’s that there are 355 other coaches in Division 1 Women’s Basketball, and there is not a single one that I’d rather see leading the Wildcats, as Barnes is quickly ascending to one of the premier coaches in NCAA Basketball. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!