NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - ARIZONA VS MARYLAND

March 19, 2023

Adia Barnes

Cate Reese

Shaina Pellington

XFINITY Center

Arizona Wildcats

Media Conference

Maryland 77, Arizona 64

ADIA BARNES: I'd like to start off by saying Maryland is a really good team. I want to give them all the credit. They outplayed us, especially the first couple minutes of the game and the third quarter and made some things really difficult for us. They are a good team, so you know, I think at times they wanted it a little more and they made plays. You're at home, you should do that.

For us I'm proud of our team. We came in here and knew it was going to be tough on the road at a home site. I thought we battled. We didn't start off the game -- I think we were nervous and tight and battled and played great defense and went into the half feeling good.

Then the third quarter happened. We just have to learn from that. We can't go through those lulls and win games especially on the road. Best of luck to Maryland moving forward.

Q. Your last game as a Wildcat and you both left it all out on the court today and you both battled really hard. What's it like knowing it's the end the road for you as a Wildcat right now?

CATE REESE: It's been a great five years (tearing up).

I don't even know how to feel right now. Sad, but happy for all I was able to accomplish at Arizona with my teammates, with AD a. Unfortunately only one team wins the at end and we just weren't that team.

SHAINA PELLINGTON: To build off what Cate said, I was a transfer from Oklahoma, came from a tough situation.

Yeah, Adia is one of the one that is took a chance on me and it's something that I'll forever be grateful for. I feel like I developed a lot as a player but most importantly as a person and I do owe a lot to Adia and the coaching staff and just the environment in Tucson, and I do want to say thank you for everybody that was patient with me and encouraged my progress. That's something I'm never going to forget. This might be the end of our collegiate careers with U-of-A but I think we are always going to be family so that's something that I'm always going to hold dear to my heart.

Q. You worked so hard in the second quarter to go into halftime with that lead. From your perspective, what flipped in that third quarter?

CATE REESE: I mean, we just -- I think we got a little maybe too comfortable, I don't know. We just in that moment starting out in the third quarter, we just didn't want it more and they took it to us and we just kind of fell back on our heels I feel like. We weren't hitting shots. We were 3-for-15 in the third quarter, so I think that that really just killed us and it gave them confidence to just kind of attack any one of us. It just really -- the third quarter really hurt us.

Q. Five years in college for you, and on this team, I'm wondering who has been the biggest inspiration over these five years and helped motivate you over the course of your collegiate career?

CATE REESE: Most importantly I think my dad, he's always been there. Definitely one thing I would say is tough love. But he always raised the bar for me. Even when I had a good game, he wanted better for me.

I think I've had the opportunity to play with two great point guards here at Arizona, Aari and Shaina. I think it's been great. I think they have really helped to develop me. They have always pushed me and asked for the best out of me. I appreciate that. The coaching staff has always wanted the best for me and they are always there for me. I think that just -- I've always had the support I've needed.

Q. I notice you guys call Coach Barnes 'Adia,' and that's not something that's normal in most programs --

ADIA BARNES: I didn't notice.

Q. I wanted to know, Shaina, coming from a different program, how has that coach/player relationship differed from the past?

SHAINA PELLINGTON: I think it's really important to have that kind of relationship with Adia. Yeah, we call her by her first name because we have that kind of a relationship with her. You know, like she's more than just our coach. We see her as a person and she sees us as a person. We address each other by each other's names because that's who we are.

And yeah, that's something that I've learned to really value and appreciate coming from a different institution, where things were much different. You know, and then coming here, it's like a breath of fresh air, and I do encourage any player that's looking to get into college to really look into that. You know, because it does make all the difference in having that relationship and having that connection with your head coach as a player.

So it can make or break your career having a relationship with your coach, and that's something I've really appreciated being here.

CATE REESE: I think it's funny whenever I go into interviews, I always debate in my head if I am going to call her Coach Barnes or Adia. 'Coach Barnes' never sounds right so I normally always go with 'Adia.'

Yeah, I am, it's just the culture that we have at Arizona. Like we see her as a person. She's not just our coach. I think like Shaina said, that's one of the most important relationships to build. You're around your coach 24/7, so being able to bond on a different level, not just player and coach, is important.

Q. I was just wondering, early on it seemed like Maryland was fronting you a lot and had someone behind as like a shade defender. You still managed to pull out 19 points but seemed like they tried to limit your post touches. How tough was it to get established early on?

CATE REESE: I think it was kind of difficult for the guards to pass it in because they were nervous about the person shadowing behind me. I think off of rotations and skip passes was the better way to get the ball in. I think they did a good job in the second half of attacking, too, and you know, bringing into them not just kind of trying to force it in the paint.

So I think their game plan was just to impact the paint, make it difficult for the post to score. I think they did a good job, unfortunately for us.

Q. So unfortunately, the journey is over with Arizona. But just tell me what both of you have learned throughout the journey as both a student athlete, both on and off the court?

SHAINA PELLINGTON: I mean, I've learned so much. Me and Cate both got the luxury of being a part of the final, getting to the championship game, and the National Championship not too long ago. From going to that, you know, and like having that kind of experience, that's something that not very many people get to have that experience.

And again, like just to go back to what I was saying before, I feel like being here, I've learned so much about being a basketball player and figuring myself out as a person, what I like, what I dislike.

I feel like, again, I'm so appreciative that I got the opportunity to be here because I can take those tools that I learned and apply it to my life after this, whatever that looks like. So I'm really excited for that.

CATE REESE: Yeah, I learned how to be an adult. You come in at 17, 18 years old, and I had no idea. It's so embarrassing, my freshman year, I told them I didn't know how to do laundry. I didn't know how to do laundry what I got here. I didn't know how to do a lot of stuff. My sister also went to the University of Arizona, and I've always had her, and like being the baby of my family, I always learned to lean on other people.

So she's always been there for me, one of my biggest supporters at every single game. So she's mad she couldn't come here.

But I think I have learned so much as a player, as an athlete. I learned how to be a leader. I watched Aari be a great leader and then be able to step into that position myself the last couple years. I learned how to be mentally tough, getting over injuries. Last year was extremely hard. I think I'll be able to cherish my five years at Arizona for rest of my life, but I don't think the chapter is necessarily over for basketball for Shaina or I.

Obviously we have a future ahead of us. We want to go play pro. We want to go overseas or whatever it is. I think that our chapter ends here with Arizona but obviously we're alum and we're going to always be around Arizona, come back when we can. Yeah, I mean, we grew up here.

Q. For both of you, in the last two games, you've seen Paris Clark do pretty incredible things on the court. The other day, she had seven rebounds and today she helped both of you spur on that run you had in the second quarter. What do you see from Paris and what do you think her future is at Arizona?

SHAINA PELLINGTON: I think the sky is the limit for Paris. You're right, she came in and gave us a fire that we desperately needed. That's something special. Not a lot of players can do that, especially as a freshman.

I think that is something that's really amazing about her, and I feel like I said, the sky is the limit for her and her development as a player. She's phenomenal. I'm excited, as an alum, I guess, follow along with her journey, because she's going to be a special player.

CATE REESE: Yeah, I can't agree with Shaina more. I think Paris is a competitor. She's a great person. But yeah, there's so much basketball ahead of her. As a freshman, she has a motor, even in practice, she's so competitive sometimes. She's picking up her team. I think it's great as her mom with say, "PP Swish," she's going to be mad I said that, but that's her little nickname.

I'm super proud of her and how she's been able to grow as a basketball player here. I think we saw it in spurts. I mean, the Utah game, she helped us win -- or not win that game but she helped us get back in that game.

I think today, she never gave up. So I'm super proud of her and I'm happy for her and I can't wait to see what had he does in the future.

Q. Diamond Miller had a pretty strong second quarter. Can you talk about what you saw from her today? She was quiet in the first and in the second she helped galvanize that run?

ADIA BARNES: Looked like she was probably challenged at halftime and she came out and just was on fire. Really hard for us to guard. I think that we kind of allowed her to get identity in transition and had a lot of isolation moments. We know she loves to go left and she started going right and scored. She was hard to stop.

Diamond is a great player. She's versatile. She's long, she's athletic. She's a gamer. She's an All-American. I coached her at USA Basketball and we won a gold together, so I was very familiar with her. She poses a difficult matchup.

So I think she was just a handful for us, and really, it looks like to me that probably Brenda got into her at halftime and challenged her because she came out like a different player in the second half, and that was clearly evident.

Q. In that second quarter, or in the end of the first, you called a time-out, and I was able to sort of see into the -- and I saw you making adjustments. What were the adjustments that you made at that point that helped your team go on a run?

ADIA BARNES: Just being -- there were some things defensively that we weren't really doing. I saw the way we started the game. Didn't really have a sense of urgency defensively, and was having a hard time getting stops.

We knew when one of the keys coming into the game was we had to slow Maryland down in transition and I felt like the first couple minutes we were timid on offense and then we weren't getting back on defense and that wasn't the game plan.

Just had to adjust, change some lineups and go for a run, played smaller, really successful being small. Just gave them easy ways to get the ball in side. We knew that Maryland switches one through five. So we were trying to -- we were isolating and trying to get certain people in switches, especially Pinzan in the first half, and when there was heavy help on the help side we were skipping and it trying to go inside. Third quarter they brought her in off the bench to get more shooters off the floor, so that was the counter.

I thought that we did some good things -- but we just couldn't get our offense going. You know, on the road, I said it before, you can't start off a game shooting 23 percent and allowing a team to shoot 57 percent, and then do the same thing again in the third quarter. That was my concern at halftime was, you know, going back with the lineup that had just ended the game, we're going back; I was trying to see if we could get Jade going because I knew we needed a couple shooters on the floor and just gave a couple minutes, but we had a rough third quarter again so that was unfortunate.

Q. You touched on it a little bit. I wanted to ask about, what is the challenge slowing them down in transition because in the third quarter --

ADIA BARNES: They were getting the ball out really fast before we could even set up our press can getting up the floor really fast and we know that they would do that. So we were prepared for that, and I thought we handled that better in the second quarter and I think the third quarter just wasn't on point. It wasn't matching up and then just not guarding them at halfcourt and things that are uncharacteristic for us. We guard on-ball a certain way and we are pretty strategically organized in what we do and just the lack of discipline on some things. Like there's certain actions on a shooter, we weren't going under a screen; I saw multiple times we go under, we give up a three. They made us pay for every mistake, and those are mistakes we can't make. These games are a possession, and you get down by 20.

So I thought just we didn't have discipline and a sense of urgency in that third quarter, and I don't know why. I think just maybe us not being able to get the stops, we lost a little bit of confidence. But you know, things we were supposed to be trapping. When we trapped later, we turned them over. We know that Diamond Miller coming off an on ball we should trap. We know we are capable of turning her over and we never trapped or we went under screens, and that's not what we do. I think those things they paid for. We are not ever supposed to help off the strong side. Well, we did, we gave up a three.

Those are, I think, mistakes that come from lack of experience with certain players and like Paris, she's a freshman, she's going to make those mistakes. But putting her in these situations, it helps us with the future but it doesn't help you win games in the interim because you lose games from stuff like that.

Q. Curious how Cate Reese handled mismatches in the post, at times she because the tallest player on the court. Curious how you worked with her to handle mismatches when she sees them, and when Shy got her second foul, how did the momentum shift in your favor the second quarter?

ADIA BARNES: Well, so when Shy got another foul, that was a good thing for us. I was like, that's good. She's another tough matchup. She's long. She's athletic. She goes to the rim really hard. She pushes the ball in transition, so I wasn't mad about her getting another foul. I would have liked a couple more. So her out of the game is good.

You know, they are long and athletic, so while they don't have size inside they have a lot of size on the perimeter because Diamond is really a three, but she's playing the four. Those are hard matchups. Her and Sellers are hard to match up with. I thought Shaina could give pressure, but I felt at times we weren't pressuring her when Shaina should pressure her. Inside, we were strategic and had a good game plan to post her up and we knew a key to the game was pounding the ball inside because we know that Maryland switches everything. So we strategically put it so Pinzan was going to be on the mismatch, and I thought Cate handled it well.

I thought they put a lot of bodies, and then we didn't hit shots or drive it after skip passes or drive it baseline, we would go back to the middle. So there's challenges for us. I think when we have more of a defensive lineup then that's really a lot of congestion in the paint. When we have more of an offensive lineup in we have tougher matchups against Diamond and Sellers and that's just the challenges of our team we have to work through.

I thought Cate did a good job. She battled and gave effort on both ends. She played 35 minutes and being the primary scorer, I think it says a lot. I thought she was getting body a lot in the first half and I said, don't flop that much because we need you in transition because when you flop on the floor, we don't have you in transition. But she fought and wanted to win and played hard. We just needed other people to step up. I think Lauren stepped up. But we need other people to make shots. And that's kind of how it goes.

I also know as a coach, like when you're a player and you're coming in two minutes and you get a couple shots and then you don't make them, you come out, I know that's hard as a player, but as a coach, you know, you can't wait five minutes because then you're down 15. That's the balance and that's the way you have to try to coach.

I thought that they just outplayed us at certain points in the game.

Q. I asked your players about calling you "Adia" and you said you didn't even notice. How did you developed that relationship such that you don't have to tell them?

ADIA BARNES: It's funny because I don't have an ego like that. I don't really care. I think people call me all different things but I don't really even pay attention because it's like so insignificant to me. I'm not someone that's, oh, you have to call me coach bans. That's not even my married name. I haven't changed my name yet. I don't even think about it, really, because I don't care.

So it's funny -- it's funny, I didn't even really realize it until you said it and it is true. But I think when they are introducing me they will say "Coach" or they will just say "Coach." So I have never actually given them a name that they have to call me.

So for me it wasn't even a big deal. It's funny that you noticed that. For me I don't care. I'm never going to say, you have to call me "Coach" because I don't -- they usually say "Coach" but like referring to me sometimes they will say Adia. It doesn't really -- I'm not old school. Probably if I was old school -- it's funny. It's funny that you say that because to this day my college coach I call her Coach B, and she has not coached me in like 20 years. That's just a thing, I don't know why. I think back then you couldn't call your coach their name but I just, for me, I don't -- it's not a big deal.

Q. Just wondering, you talked about it, like the skip passes, because they are obviously trapping and fronting Cate. How much in the first and third quarter felt like those were their two best defenses, and how big was it for you guys to hit a couple corner threes or shots to bring them out of that a little bit?

ADIA BARNES: For us we are at our best when we're getting stops and we're able to run. So we were killing them at times in transition. They could not guard our transition.

But if you're not getting stops and you're not getting steals, you're not running in transition. I thought because we were not getting stops and they were scoring 78 percent, I don't think we've ever allowed a team to score 78 percent in a quarter but that's rough because we weren't able to run. So we are then going against their press every time which slowed us down and that made it difficult for us.

So we really had to play better defense and turn them over like we were doing before and stick to that. Without doing that, it was going to be hard because they like to score really fast and we couldn't let it be just a track meet. I thought at times, we could have crashed a lot harder. We never had two people on the boards because they leak out so much. I felt like if we had a little bigger presence inside, it would have been a little easier.

But yeah, if you give any team, any top team and a team like Maryland, a great team like Maryland, if you allow them to in the first quarter shoot 57 percent and in the third quarter shoot 78 percent, you're not going to win a game. You're not going to win. So we are lucky we didn't get beat by 30 with that. Can't do that.

Q. So it's the final games of their careers for Cate and Shaina. What can you say about their careers and what they have meant to U-of-A basketball?

ADIA BARNES: They both have meant so much. Shaina, I did take a chance on Shaina and I'm happy I did, and I think everybody deserves a second chance and I think everybody goes through different things. Like I'm the right coach for some people; I'm not the right coach for everybody. I think that now you're going to see more movement -- and every player is not the right player for me, trust me; I'm realizing that now with the portal.

I think that taking a chance on Shaina wasn't hard. I went to go meet with her during the process and sat with her, and there were certain things that I didn't care about or I didn't care about as a player or as a coach. So I just accepted Shaina for who she was, the good and the bad and the ugly.

I can tell that you Shaina changed tremendously in the years we had her. She did probably give me some gray hair that I probably have from Shaina for her. But I love her heart. I love her work ethic and I love the person that she's become and the leader that she's become. It's gratifying for me to see the change and just to see her the way she speaks and the way she embraced her teammates and to watch her change and grow, that's a good feeling for me.

I think I saw her happy the last couple years. She wasn't happy when she first came. She didn't love basketball, so I think she found her passion back. So as a coach, I'm happy to say that and she's getting a degree, so she was not going to be on my clock and not got a degree and she did that. I think she accomplished a lot of things. She has a lot of basketball ahead of her and I think that she's ready to play now. You could see her game evolved.

So for me, the basketball, should you get better. You play more games, like we can coach, but I think the more important thing is like, are you changing as a young woman. Like should you come to Arizona one way and you should leave better and if not, I didn't do my job.

And to me in every way, that's sitting at the interviews; that's the way you speak; the way you carry yourself, and we value those things and I value those things.

So when you can come in a certain way and you leave better, then I feel like I did my job, and when you get a degree, you can represent yourself at a high level and be a good person, I think that's meaningful for me as a coach.

And then Cate took a chance on Arizona when we were all of. We were probably 300 in RPI. We weren't a winning program. I'm sure she scratched her head when she watched us win six games that year.

But she decided to come at Arizona and she wanted to do something special with us and she's done that. She pulled the program with us. She's meaningful. She learned to lead. She learned how to do laundry and stuff, I'm proud of her.

But to watch that maturity, she did not do anything. Her mom still does a lot but just to watch her grow as a woman; she got into business school and she just carried herself well. She's a great student. Just the way she role modelled our program, it's really -- I'm really happy to see and watch that and be a part of both of their lives.

And they do have a lot of basketball and it would be in the WNBA or it could be overseas but whoever is going to get these two is getting great people and great basketball players and someone that will be good leaders on and off the court. Just happy I was able to coach them.