Indiana and Arizona make their own history in the NCAA Women’s Tournament

When Adia Barnes became the head coach of Arizona women’s basketball in 2016, everyone she knew seemed to think it was a mistake, even though it was her alma mater.

“When I took the job, it was a bad job,” Barnes said. “Everyone said, ‘Don’t take it.’ All my mentors, friends who are game legends … said it was a bad job, you can’t win, it’s hard to recruit.”

Still, Barnes’ No. 3 Wildcats go to the NCAA Women’s Eight Elite and on Monday will face another team in a regional final for the first time in the program’s history: No. 4 Indiana.

The Regional Market saw its first two seeds, NC State and Texas A&M, go down on Saturday in Indiana and Arizona, two schools with men’s basketball history as national champions. And now they make their own story when it comes to women.

“The state of Indiana is basketball,” said Hoosiers coach Teri Moren, an Indiana native who played collegiate at Purdue. “Tradition has always been on the side of men. We wanted to build our own.”

Indiana (2018) and Arizona (2019) took steps toward this by winning WNIT titles over the past two years. These championships gave both programs some post-season successes needed to learn.

This is the first time since 1997, when Notre Dame faced George Washington, that two first Elite Eight players meet in a regional final. The Irish won that match and lost in the national semi-finals. But Notre Dame has won NCAA titles in 2001 and 2018 and has become a national powerhouse.

Hoosiers guard Ali Patberg, a native of Indiana, began his college career at Notre Dame in 2015. But he suffered an ACL injury that ended in what would have been his freshman season before to start. After playing the following season at Notre Dame, Patberg said his confidence had cratered, and he transferred.

“She was broken when she got to Indiana,” Moren said. “But as long as she had someone who was willing to work out and be in the gym with her, love and laugh with her, we just saw her blossom in front of the guy I saw in high school who played so fearlessly.”

Patberg led the Hoosiers with 17 points Saturday in their 73-70 victory over NC State.

“My journey has been very different,” Patberg said. “But, you know, it’s been perfect. I had a lot of tough battles at first. But I got to Indiana where they believed in me.”

Arizona made a previous Sweet 16: Barnes ’previous year, 1998, when it lost in the regional semifinals against UConn. She was the Pac-10 player of the year and played in the WNBA from 1998 to 2004, winning a championship with Seattle her last season in the league. He also played abroad before entering training. She was an assistant in Washington in 2016, when the Huskies ran in their first women’s Final Four and shortly thereafter Barnes left for Arizona.

His first season, 2016-17, was tough, as the Wildcats went from 14 to 16. It was harder in 2017-18, when they went from 6 to 24. But on the bench that season there was guard Aari McDonald, who had come from Washington (where he was a freshman at the 2017 Pac-12) and was in the transfer season.

With McDonald in training for the past three years, the Wildcats were 24-13 (winning a WNIT title), 24-7 and now 19-5 and a Final Four victory.

On Saturday, Pac-12 player of the year McDonald had one of the best games of her career at the perfect time for the Wildcats: 31 points and five rebounds in a 71-59 win over Texas A&M. Defensively, he helped keep Agies goalie Jordan Nixon to three points after Nixon scored 35 in the second round.

“I knew what it would be like to move to Arizona,” McDonald said. “I had to take it all in with a grain of salt, I had to be positive knowing I was sitting. I knew I had to get better, improve my teammates.

“What a feeling. I’m blown away. It’s crazy. It’s exciting. It’s been amazing. It’s been a wonderful journey. It’s not over yet.”