Three more Arizona women’s basketball players enter transfer portal, appear headed to SMU

UPDATE: One of Arizona’s two freshmen signees has signed with SMU. Illinois forward Roxy White was officially announced on Monday morning. It would be a surprise if Jasmine “Jazzy” Gipson does not follow.

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UPDATE 2: Minutes after the announcement of White’s signing, SMU also announced the signing of Gipson. The guard is originally from Albuquerque, NM but has been playing both club and high school ball in Texas.

Arizona now has no recruits, no healthy scholarship players who were recruited to play basketball, and no coach to rectify the situation.

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Will the last one out of the Arizona women’s basketball locker room please turn out the lights?

Guards Mailien Rolf and Paulina Paris, along with forward Sahnya Jah, have all entered their names into the portal according to Talia Goodman of on3.com. That brings the total number of former Wildcats in the portal or committed elsewhere to 10.

Both Rolf and Jah have “do not contact” tags on their entries, indicating they know where they will go. Paris has also officially picked where she will go. The “where” for all three players is SMU.

The fact that Rolf and Paris are following former head coach Adia Barnes to Dallas is not a surprise. Both seemed locked into staying at Arizona as long as she was here.

Rolf played a considerable amount as a freshman, likely more than even she expected. While she didn’t score a lot, she was a solid distributor with the ability to rebound and play tough minutes. It was a good situation for her.

Paris transferred to Arizona prior to last season. She came from North Carolina where she said she felt she had no role. The fact that she had a significant role at Arizona pleased her. She will likely have an even more significant role next season at SMU.

Jah is a surprise. The sophomore also transferred to Arizona last season. She came from South Carolina where she ran into problems with head coach Dawn Staley and was suspended as the team made its run to a national title.

Jah had similar problems at Arizona. She seemed estranged from her teammates at times and had other issues with her coach. Barnes also suspended her. Then, the NCAA got involved, suspending her for one-third of the season (nine games).

Barnes is involved in a significant rebuild at SMU, similar to the one she took on when she came to Arizona. Having Jah’s potential in that situation likely outweighs the drawbacks. As for the player, she gets a change of scenery (again) without having to roll the dice with another coach.

That leaves the Arizona roster whittled down to an injured Montaya Dew, former walk-on Erin Tack, and former walk-on Brooklyn Rhodes. There are two signees, but their status is still a question.

The transfer Barnes tweeted about just before being hired by SMU never announced, likely because she was notified that a change was in the offing. It would be a surprise if she didn’t end up at SMU, as well.

In fact, she may already be there. Former Penn State forward Grace Hall was announced as an SMU pickup yesterday.

Barnes also has the option of trying to keep some of the five Mustangs who entered their names into the portal before she was hired. She is already ahead of where she was at Arizona.

At the end of the season, seven former Arizona Wildcats entered the transfer portal. Some of those were expected. Some were not. Some were expected but still unfortunate.

What was also expected was that their head coach would not coach as a lame duck next season. Without an extension, she was almost assuredly gone. With athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois publicly stating that there would be no discussion until after the season, the writing on the wall was 10 feet high.

Barnes made several public statements over the season about it being dedicated to the fans and what they built together. She reiterated that after the final game in what many thought was a farewell speech. It was.

Almost all of her players are now gone, too.