Arizona women’s basketball was picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 this season. With four games left to go, it’s still possible. It just might not be desirable. The Wildcats might be better off sitting right where they are in ninth.
Arizona (15-12, 6-8 Big 12) had a frontloaded conference schedule. That means the Wildcats will play their final four games of the regular season against four of the bottom five teams in the conference. They get two of those—including the best of the four—at home starting Wednesday evening.
A sweep of those four teams puts Arizona within a game of a 20-win season. That could be accomplished in the opening game of the Big 12 tournament. For one of the youngest teams in NCAA women’s basketball, that’s not a bad outcome.
“I would not have thought 20 wins are a possibility (after losing to NAU and GCU),” Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said. “There were times in the season, like when we played against West Virginia and the way we played, I said, ‘Oh, we have potential to kind of get hot at the right time,’ but I think with a young team being consistent and figuring that out, it’s been really hard.”
It all gets started against BYU (13-12, 4-10 Big 12) on Wednesday evening. The Cougars are sitting three spots behind Arizona in the standings. They should be the Wildcats’ toughest challenge over the final two weeks of conference play.
There are plenty of reasons to think Arizona will take this one, though. For starters, the Wildcats beat the Cougars in Provo in January. It took a lot of fight, but one thing Arizona has shown this year is a willingness to fight.
The Wildcats have pushed several of the top teams in the league late into games before running out of gas. Utah, Baylor, TCU, and a fully healthy Kansas State all were in single-digit games or even trailing Arizona late in the second half. Their more experienced rosters pulled those games out, as was expected.
BYU is not a team with a seventh-year center like K-State or TCU. Nor is it a roster full of upperclass transfers like most of the best teams in the conference. Its biggest star is a freshman.
Then, again, BYU just showed that it can pull off a big win. No. 20 Oklahoma State can attest to that. Can it take that show on the road?
After facing that group of Cougars, Arizona will travel to Houston to take on the other Cougars. This group is 1-13 in Big 12 play and 5-20 overall, bringing up the rear of the league standings. Once again, though, it has shown it can win a big game. Its victim was also Oklahoma State. This time, Arizona’s opponent gets homecourt advantage.
The Wildcats return home for its final home game against Texas Tech. The Raiders are 3-11 in the Big 12 and 14-13 overall. Its league wins have come against BYU and Houston (twice).
Arizona will wind up on the road against rival ASU (8-18, 2-12 Big 12). It’s the second team it will be facing for the second time. It’s also a team the Wildcats have beaten.
Like the BYU win, the victory over ASU didn’t come easily. The Sun Devils were able to hang in the game when Breya Cunningham went to the bench with fouls. The Wildcats picked up their play in the second half, but it was never a comfortable game. It’s also on the road.
Arizona will be favored in all four games. The Wildcats have superior talent and have better results this year. However, Houston and BYU have proven they can take down a team with superior talent and better results. ASU will be trying to get something positive out of another down year.
Four wins will get the Wildcats to 19 wins for the sixth time in the last seven years and leave the possibility of a 20-win season within their grasp. That possibility may hinge on where they land in the final league standings, though.
When the Big 12 tournament opens on Wednesday, Mar. 5, it will feature games between the teams seeded 9th through 16th. The No. 9 seed and the No. 16 seed will face off. As of now, Arizona would be in this game as the 9th seed. It’s a winnable game that would set it up for another winnable game against the No. 8 seed on Thursday, Mar. 6.
Getting to 20 wins would be a huge accomplishment for the Wildcats, but it might not get them into the NCAA tournament this year. There would have to be a big improvement to the No. 58 NET they currently sport. Scheduling a more difficult nonconference slate might have helped, but Arizona’s overall strength of schedule turned out to be a respectable No. 41. The bigger problem was going 1-2 in Quad 3 games.
“I was very, very intentional about having a very different schedule (than last year) because I knew we’re young,” Barnes said. “And I knew strategically, we were going to be young because I wasn’t adding a whole bunch of transfers and fifth years, and I knew that that wasn’t going to be the formula for success. So yes, it’s where I want it to be. Now I thought with that…we’d be a little bit ahead of where we are. I thought we would have won more games, honestly, with that schedule…You always want to win 11 out of 13 preseason games. So I anticipated a few more wins, but I think it’s right where we need it to be for who we are and our personnel.”
On Selection Sunday, it will likely be the Quad 3 losses that hurt Arizona more than any strength of schedule. The WBIT may be the result.