NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - WEST VIRGINIA VS ARIZONA

March 16, 2023

Adia Barnes

XFINITY Center

Arizona Wildcats

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We have the head coach of the Arizona Wildcats Adia Barnes here.

Q. I just got done talking to Esmery. Hilarious girl to start off with. Such a huge game for her playing against some of her old friends. Any comments on that?

COACH BARNES: I think every player has a lot of emotions playing against their former team and they always want to play really well. I'm just excited for her. How random is that, to play against her former team? And one of our coaches was also a coach there. So yeah, she's excited. I'm glad to hear she was happy because she sometimes gets nervous doing interviews. She did the interview and she was good, so that's a good start. I think she's in a good place. I am excited to be in the tournament. Obviously, plays against good friends that she's known from before, even in West Virginia.

Q. You said what are the odds. We saw the zoom, we saw all the pictures of the girls freaking out. What was that initial reaction when you saw you were playing West Virginia?

COACH BARNES: It was an initial reaction. And there was a reaction before that because it was on the screen, unfortunately. But I think -- just excitement. Obviously, we knew we were going to be in the tournament. We did not anticipate a 7-seed. It really doesn't matter. At this time in March, anything can happen. And the third part of that is playing against her former team. The odds of that is random. It's a little different because it's a different coaching staff. But just excited. You always are up to play against your old friends. And I think Esmery is just excited to be in Tournament, and same with Jade. She mentioned it earlier; she hasn't been dancing in a few years. I think for our older players, they are just ready to make some noise in the tournament. We didn't end the regular season the way we wanted. The tournament is like a new beginning and a new season for us, so we're just excited.

Q. You mention sort of being able to reset before the Tournament. How helpful is the extended break you guys get between the Conference Tournament and the NCAA?

COACH BARNES: For us in the Pac 12, we have a really long one. Being the first tournament, I think it's good and bad. From just my seven years there, I think in the beginning it's like, oh, it's so long. It's like a hurry up and wait. I think it's hard for players psychologically. The other part of it is you get more time to practice and prepare and you get to rest. For the year we went to the Final Four, when Aari was at Arizona, she got to rest an injury. I think those things it's really good. But I think as players I think it's long. They would always rather play games than practice, obviously, even if they don't say it. For us this year in particular it was good. Didn't play in the tournament like we wanted to. But when I look back and what I'm really optimistic is if you look back at our Final Four year, we didn't play well. We were in a bad place. And then we went and played really well in the NCAA Tournament. I think thinking about that, I knew that we had two weeks, I think we had like 13 days to -- first of all, to give them a little bit of time off. Just mentally this is the time of year when everyone is fatigued. It's a long season. You miss all the holidays. School is not in session. Your friends are on Spring Break in Mexico having fun. We're there playing and waiting. Don't know who our opponent is. That was a time for me to have us reset, get better. And we really got better. Work on some things that weren't going so well and then focus on this tournament. I think it was good for us. When you're rolling, it's not ideal because then you are on a roll and then you have to wait. I think for us, just from my experience, it's been good. So we'll see.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you.