Changed Culture at Arizona

[Wbbfan1]

Their culture changed, Arizona Wildcats ready to take next step


700 Season Tickets Sales, 4th best in PAC 12. Season Tickets cost from $49 to $74

 

[Plebe]

Their culture changed, Arizona Wildcats ready to take next step


700 Season Tickets Sales, 4th best in PAC 12. Season Tickets cost from $49 to $74

“It’s about the process of being great and how to get there,” Barnes said. “The most important thing I focused on was the culture, not immediate gratification. Culture is everything. If you don’t have a good culture, you will always underachieve. It’s better to lose a game and stick to your culture and rules than to win. If you have a bad culture, good kids won’t want to go there. Sustaining success is much harder if you don’t have a solid foundation; you won’t achieve it.”

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

They mentioned those 14 courtside seats - my wife and I took 2 of them. Last year, they only had 4, but they were given (by chance) to 4 season ticket holders each game. We had 2 for one of the OOC games, and loved it. No extra "charge", but $100 donation for each seat.

Absolutely true about the culture, Adia is a class act. They have always been a fun team to watch, but lacked the ability to play a complete game or often make coordinated offensive plays under Coach Butts. Last year, they looked so much better.

As I've mentioned before, we don't make as many games as we would like due to my wife's health, but the good seats should be an extra motivation.

As to the weak OOC schedule - it is because the team is a work in process. She spoke about that before last season, indicating that, once the team was "up" to it, she will be making the schedule tougher. As long as it isn't too many years, I'm good with that.

 

[willtalk]

If a poster on the Cal insider can be believed they just pick up a commit from 6'6" Semaj Smith (2018). Seems like more highly rated players are staying west. Is the WCBB landscape undergoing a process of power shifting from the east?

 

[wallman]

This is great for the PAC, the more teams making moves the better we become.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Is the WCBB landscape undergoing a process of power shifting from the east?

I don't think I'd go that far. Unless you count Baylor and Texas as west, but I don't. UConn isn't going away any time soon. Notre Dame and Maryland should continue to be formidable. Tennessee and Duke get talent, what the coaching staff does with it is not necessarily a given. Florida St. on the rise? South Carolina of course. Will Mississippi St. build off of last year's run and continue to grow their program?

I'm a West Coast homer, I'd love the balance of power to shift, but I don't really expect it to. There are just SO many more schools in the east compared to the west. I am glad to see some balance in the Pac 12 and happy that Stanford isn't the only team that is doing damage in the Tourney in recent years. I think outside the Pac 12 there isn't a whole lot going on on the left coast to get excited about. Gonzaga should be decent again but probably not gonna make noise nationally.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I don't think I'd go that far. Unless you count Baylor and Texas as west, but I don't. UConn isn't going away any time soon. Notre Dame and Maryland should continue to be formidable. Tennessee and Duke get talent, what the coaching staff does with it is not necessarily a given. Florida St. on the rise? South Carolina of course. Will Mississippi St. build off of last year's run and continue to grow their program?

I'm a West Coast homer, I'd love the balance of power to shift, but I don't really expect it to. There are just SO many more schools in the east compared to the west. I am glad to see some balance in the Pac 12 and happy that Stanford isn't the only team that is doing damage in the Tourney in recent years. I think outside the Pac 12 there isn't a whole lot going on on the left coast to get excited about. Gonzaga should be decent again but probably not gonna make noise nationally.

Exactly. And not just "so many more" schools in the east, but more importantly, so many more P5 schools (where the money is).

On the brighter side, I just glanced at the Pac's OOC schedules, and a lot of teams are playing a more diverse schedule than often in the past. Arizona isn't one of them, for the reason mentioned above.

 

[drweo]

“It’s about the process of being great and how to get there,” Barnes said. “The most important thing I focused on was the culture, not immediate gratification. Culture is everything. If you don’t have a good culture, you will always underachieve. It’s better to lose a game and stick to your culture and rules than to win. If you have a bad culture, good kids won’t want to go there. Sustaining success is much harder if you don’t have a solid foundation; you won’t achieve it.”

Nice. Looks like another high-quality, high standards coach for women's college basketball. Everybody wins!

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

If a poster on the Cal insider can be believed they just pick up a commit from 6'6" Semaj Smith (2018). Seems like more highly rated players are staying west. Is the WCBB landscape undergoing a process of power shifting from the east?

Reported in the paper today that she committed to Arizona. Wasn't sure if that was what you meant, I originally read your post that she committed to Cal. In any case, the better the Pac, the happier I am.

 

[Plebe]

I don't think I'd go that far. Unless you count Baylor and Texas as west, but I don't. UConn isn't going away any time soon. Notre Dame and Maryland should continue to be formidable. Tennessee and Duke get talent, what the coaching staff does with it is not necessarily a given. Florida St. on the rise? South Carolina of course. Will Mississippi St. build off of last year's run and continue to grow their program?

I'm a West Coast homer, I'd love the balance of power to shift, but I don't really expect it to. There are just SO many more schools in the east compared to the west. I am glad to see some balance in the Pac 12 and happy that Stanford isn't the only team that is doing damage in the Tourney in recent years. I think outside the Pac 12 there isn't a whole lot going on on the left coast to get excited about. Gonzaga should be decent again but probably not gonna make noise nationally.

It depends on what is meant by a "power shift." There's no doubt that the Pac-12 has raised its level in the past five years. This is reflected not only in the metrics like RPI, Massey and Sagarin (#1 conference in the country in all three), but also in number of teams making the tournament, winning games in the tournament, and even reaching the latter rounds of the tournament (four different Pac-12 teams have reached a Final Four in the past five years). Clearly, you don't have better teams without some combination of better players and better coaching.

 

[willtalk]

I, for one, wasn't referring to the Pac12 exclusively in respect to the power shift from the east. When you factor in level of talent that Baylor and Texas have garnered recently along with the players committing to the Pac 12 programs the trend for players committing to the traditionally strong eastern programs has shifted. There were also recent highly rated player transfers from ND, Louisville and Maryland to West Coast programs. It seems that players believe they do not have to travel east to be part of a top program anymore. Don't know if this will continue but it seems to be trending in that direction now.