Arizona women’s basketball has found its next coach.
The school announced Wednesday it has hired Becky Burke to coach the Wildcats, replacing Adia Barnes, who left after nine seasons to take the SMU job.
Welcome to Tucson, Head Coach Becky Burke! #BearDown pic.twitter.com/GTIxTvfBSO
— Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaWBB) April 9, 2025
The 35-year-old Burke comes to Arizona from the University of Buffalo, where she spent three seasons. This was her best year with the Bulls, finishing 30-7 and winning the WNIT, the women’s basketball tertiary tournament.
The Bulls lost in the semifinals of the Mid-American Conference tournament as the No. 3 seed this year. They finished tied with No. 2 Toledo with a 13-5 record in league play but were seeded third after losing both regular-season games to the Rockets.
Prior to Buffalo, she was the director of basketball operations at Cal State Fullerton (2013-14), an assistant coach at St. Joseph’s (2014-15), then head coach of NAIA Embry-Riddle in Prescott, Ariz. (2016-18), head coach of Charleston (2018-20), and head coach at USC Upstate (2020-22). She was Big South Coach of the Year at USC Upstate in 2022.
She is 174-92 overall as a head coach at all levels.
Burke made a $250,000 base salary in 2023-24, although bonuses could have bumped her up to $307,000. She was signed through the 2027-28 season and had a $500,000 buyout as of Apr. 1, 2024. Her current buyout is not readily available.
Burke is taking on a big task. After the end of the most successful period in women’s basketball history, something has to be done quickly to stop the bleeding.
Arizona is just four years removed from its only appearance in the Final Four, losing to Stanford in the 2021 national championship game. The program made six straight postseason appearances under Barnes beginning in 2019 after missing the postseason all but one time since 2005. It went 169-114 in nine seasons with Barnes, going 70-72 in league play despite playing in the brutal Pac-12 for eight of the last nine years.
The years since have been tumultuous, although each one has ended with at least 18 wins and an appearance in the postseason. The stands were full. People were willing to pay ever-increasing ticket prices to create one of the best draws in women’s basketball despite the transfers in and out of the program. While the men still chase their first Final Four in 24 years, the women at least had a recent appearance to bank on.
Burke will have a tough time getting the women back there. She could have a tough time even maintaining the postseason appearance streak that stretched to six years this season.
She will come to Tucson with no high-major player pool to bring to Tucson as transfers, something the depleted roster could desperately use. It will be her first foray into the Power 4/5 arena as a coach, although she was part of a Final Four team at Louisville in her playing days (2008-12). She comes from a conference that was ranked 16th overall in NET. It was 11th among mid-majors (not including the Big East and UConn).
Her best option might be to try to woo some of the players back from the portal if they left because they did not want to play for Barnes. The question is how much that will cost and whether she will have the money to do it.
Almost all of Arizona’s players are gone, several following Barnes to SMU. All the signed recruits are gone, with the pair also following Barnes to SMU. SMU has already announced two portal pickups, both of whom were presumably on their way to Arizona prior to the departure of Barnes.
Burke and athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois will also have to sell the fans after the end of the Barnes era got so messy. The lack of a contract extension and her feeling that she couldn’t compete with the support the program got had Barnes looking for a way out. The fact was well-known, so having the end of the era go as it has didn’t instill much faith in the people who are passionate about the program.
The concerted effort in some corners to paint Barnes as unreasonable and greedy for wanting resources to compete against the likes of TCU and Baylor couldn’t have helped matters with committed fans or possible candidates for the job. What repercussions that will have on a fanbase that has been one of the largest in the country over the last several years remains to be seen. Decreases in those numbers could hit the program financially since both prices and demand rose dramatically during Barnes’ tenure.
The only trustworthy information from the Arizona search was that Lindy La Rocque, who was hired by Reed-Francois at UNLV and has ties to Tucson’s past, didn’t want the job. Another mid-major coach had declined to be interviewed, according to Mitchell Northam of SB Nation. On the positive side, former Wildcats men’s basketball great Jason Terry was said to be interested.
Burke will now have to put together an entire roster. The only scholarship player left on the roster is Montaya Dew. She is expected to stay at Arizona.
Dew was injured in one of Arizona’s final regular season games. She has now had knee injuries two years in a row, missing all of her freshman season after ACL surgery. This time, it was an MCL issue.
Arizona has Erin Tack and Brooklyn Rhodes on the roster, but both were brought on board as walk-ons and given scholarships when the roster numbers dropped in 2023-24. The new coach could grant them scholarships again, but their aid will technically end after the semester. Tack could go back to her aid with track and field, assuming that program has available money.