Arizona women's basketball coach Adia Barnes not apologizing for impassioned postgame speech
Arizona stunned No. 1 seed Connecticut 69-59 in the Final Four Friday night to advance to its first NCAA women's basketball national championship game. The upset victory over perennial powerhouse UConn had plenty of people talking, but a moment during the Wildcatsā postgame huddle has drawn just as much, if not more, attention.
Arizonaās Final Four victory was the kind of moment that you live for as a player and as a coach. So you canāt fault head coach Adia Barnes for being extremely enthusiastic after her Wildcats took down the most successful program in NCAA women's basketball history to advance to the title game.
In the moments following the victory, ESPN cameras captured Barnesā impassioned speech to her team in a huddle, which happened to include a middle finger and an expletive, and it didnāt take long for the moment to go viral.
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Barnes addressed the viral moment during a Saturday morning press conference, where she explained that she believed she was sharing a private moment with her team after pulling off the upset. But she also made it clear that sheās not going to apologize for what she said and did.
āI honestly had a moment with my team, and I thought it was a more intimate huddle,ā Barnes said. āI said to my team something that I truly felt and I know they felt, and it just appeared different on TV, but Iām not apologizing for it because I donāt feel like I need to apologize. Itās what I felt with my team at the moment. I wouldnāt take it back. Weāve gone to war together. We believe in each other. So Iām in those moments, and thatās how I am, so I donāt apologize for doing that. Iām just me, and I have to just be me.ā
Barnes and the Wildcats will face No. 1 overall seed Stanford, coached by Tara VanDerveer, in an all Pac-12 championship game on Sunday (6 p.m. ET, ESPN).