{"id":87332,"date":"2025-04-05T00:18:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T05:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/smu-is-likely-to-hire-arizonas-adia-barnes-as-next-head-womens-basketball-coach\/"},"modified":"2025-04-05T00:18:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T05:18:59","slug":"smu-is-likely-to-hire-arizonas-adia-barnes-as-next-head-womens-basketball-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/smu-is-likely-to-hire-arizonas-adia-barnes-as-next-head-womens-basketball-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"SMU is likely to hire Arizona\u2019s Adia Barnes as next head women\u2019s basketball coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/smu-mustangs\/\">SMU<\/a><\/strong> is likely to hire <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/arizona-wildcats\/\">Arizona\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> <strong>Adia Barnes<\/strong> as their next head women\u2019s basketball coach, sources told On3. <\/p>\n<p>Barnes, a former WNBA player and standout for the Arizona Wildcats during her collegiate career, has been the head coach of her alma mater since 2016. Under her leadership, Arizona women\u2019s basketball rose to national prominence, highlighted by an impressive run to the NCAA championship game in 2021, where the Wildcats narrowly lost to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/stanford-cardinal\/\">Stanford<\/a><\/strong> 54-53. <\/p>\n<p>During her tenure, Barnes compiled a 169-114 overall record and a 78-81 conference record, navigating the program through the competitive Pac-12 and, most recently, the transition to the Big 12.<\/p>\n<p>SMU\u2019s likely decision to hire Barnes comes shortly after the school parted ways with former head coach <strong>Toyelle Wilson<\/strong>, who led the program for three seasons. The change also coincides with the arrival of new athletic director <strong>Damon Evans<\/strong>, who previously served at <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/maryland-terrapins\/\">Maryland<\/a><\/strong>. As the Mustangs recently transitioned into the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in the 2024\u201325 season, this expected hiring signals a clear commitment to building a nationally competitive program.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/her\/news\/smu-is-likely-to-hire-arizonas-adia-barnes-as-next-head-womens-basketball-coach\/\">SMU is likely to hire Arizona\u2019s Adia Barnes as next head women\u2019s basketball coach<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/\">On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SMU is likely to hire Arizona\u2019s Adia Barnes as their next head women\u2019s basketball coach,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}