Cheers to the fans
Coach Becky Burke gives autographs and chats with fans during a meet-and-greet event with the Arizona women’s basketball team at the Tucson Racquet Club on July 28, 2025.
Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star
“Everybody talks about (Arizona) and how special our fan base is, and obviously I knew that. I felt that when I got the job, but to experience it for myself and be in a situation where I could coach a game in McKale in a game atmosphere. I think it was well beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Our players felt the exact same way. It was absolutely incredible. There are very few programs in the country that have the elite level of fan support that we do. I couldn’t have asked for more from a fan support standpoint last season — how patient they were with us, how they wrapped their arms around our players, not just the first game, but every game through our season at McKale. I think they saw how much improvement there was.”
Then came the losses
“We played a fairly weak non-conference schedule and some of that was strategic, and some of that was kind of already in place before I got the job here. But, we needed to just figure out what our team was made of and not go play high-level opponents right away. So we really wanted to build some confidence in the non-conference and then, by doing that, we really didn’t challenge ourselves to the level that (Big 12 teams) probably were going to challenge us. I would say definitely when we started Big 12 play, there was a little bit of a shock in terms of, wow, this is the level of play that we’re going to have throughout our entire conference season and having to accept that and live up to what those standards were going to be to try to win those games.”
Big 12 reality sets in
“It was a really big reality check for most of our players. From a size, speed, physicality and just talent standpoint, we were a little bit behind when we got into the Big 12. For us, I feel like we squeezed every drop out of the group that we had. And as a head coach, if I can say, man, I feel like I maximized that team’s potential based on the talent that we had, then I can sleep well at night.”