Head coach Becky Burke called Arizona a complete rebuild at Big XII media days on Tuesday. Burke recanted the process she and her staff have had since being hired in April. Redshirt junior forward Montaya Dew is the only returning player from the 2024-25 Arizona roster.
Graduate transfers Noelani Cornfield and Mickayla Perdue and junior Sumaya Sugapong joined Burke in Kansas City for Big 12 Basketball Media Days. The Big XII is holding basketball media days for the women's programs on Tuesday, with the men appearing on Wednesday.
Cornfield played for Burke during the 2024-25 season at Buffalo. "The culture that she's trying
to build is discipline," was the response from Cornfield when asked what is it like playing for Burke and knowing what her expectations are.
Perdue stated she was brought to Arizona to be a scoring guard when asked why the Wildcats are the right fit for her as a transfer. Perdue was the 2024-25 Horizon League player of the Year at Cleveland State. In two seasons at Cleveland State, Perdue averaged 18.7 points per game and had a 52.0 eFG percentage.
"We had one player in the locker room and so this is a complete rebuild. We weren't hired early in the process...and the portal goes. So we came in here and hit the ground running 100 miles an hour as...my name was called. And so we've done a tremendous job of hiring a staff, building a roster in the time frame that we had...We're a no-excuses group, but let's be real about what it was. I mean it was, it was bare bones, so definitely a complete rebuild."Arizona head coach Becky Burke
The response from Burke was specifically in response to being labelled as a program builder by Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois when she was hired. Burke has been a head coach since she was 26 years old in 2016-17 and has a 174–92 record with only two losing seasons.
Burke has moved up a level at every job during her career. At 35 years old, Burke is the youngest power conference head coach in men's or women's basketball. Burke led Buffalo to a program record 30-7 2024-25 season and the WNIT Championship.
Arizona was picked 14th in the Big XII preseason coaches poll. A Burke-led team has not finished lower than ninth in their conference. Arizona finished 19-14 overall and 10-8 in the Big XII in eighth place in 2024-25. The Wildcats missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 in a season that it was held.
Guard Kamryn Kitchen from Virginia, forward Fredriecka Wallace from Kansas and 6'7 center Achol Magot are the only transfers on the 2024-25 Arizona roster from other power conference programs. Burke and her staff know the difficulty of the job in front of them.