Adia Barnes, who reportedly has a salary of $407,500, is set to receive at least $120,000 in bonuses for the Wildcats’ success in the NCAA Tournament.
Her bonuses in the postseason:
- $40,000 bonus for Arizona making the Final Four with the Elite Eight win over Indiana.
- $30,000 for the Sweet 16 win over Texas A&M.
- $45,000 for beating Stony Brook and BYU in the first rounds.
She also achieved a $5,000 bonus for reaching a 20th win of the season when the Wildcats defeated Indiana in the Elite Eight. She gets a bonus of $5,000 for winning between 20 to 24 games in a season. Arizona is 20-5.
She can earn another $50,000 if the Wildcats win the championship.
One badass mom. pic.twitter.com/fBXrF9Ku8m
— Arizona Women’s Basketball (@ArizonaWBB) March 30, 2021
A contract extension through 2025-26 is in the works requiring Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) approval.
A retention bonus is also upcoming for Barnes.
As part of her restructured contract that was approved by the ABOR in June 2019, Barnes will get a retention bonus of $50,000 if she is Arizona’s coach on July 1.
Her annual retention bonuses will escalate by another $25,000 each year, culminating in a $100,000 bonus if she is still Arizona’s coach on July 1, 2023.
She received a $25,000 retention bonus last July 1.
Injury notes
UConn freshman guard Nika Mühl’s status is undetermined with a high ankle sprain suffered in the first-round game against High Point.
Geno Auriemma said Thursday that he won’t know whether Muhl can play until after shootaround Friday. He added that the medical staff thought Muhl looked “pretty good” after on the court this week in light workouts.
Aari McDonald suffered a mild sprained ankle with less than 2 minutes left in the Elite Eight game against Indiana that required her to leave the game and be looked at by a trainer.
McDonald said Thursday the ankle was improving.
“I’m moving it around and doing treatments since I injured it, but I’ll be good to go,” she said.
Welcome to the Final Four
Arizona is in its first Final Four but UConn’s team this season lacks experience this deep in the NCAA Tournament as well.
The Huskies have eight newcomers on its roster this season.
Junior Evina Westbrook, who redshirted 2019-20, is joined by freshmen Paige Bueckers, Autumn Chassion, Aaliyah Edwards, Piath Gabriel, Mir McLean and Mühl. Class of 2021 signee Saylor Poffenbarger enrolled at UConn in January similar to Arizona’s Madi Conner from AZ Compass Prep.
Juniors Christyn Williams and Olivia Nelson-Ododa are the only current Huskies to have played in a Final Four. Both were freshmen on the team that lost to Notre Dame in the 2019 Final Four in Tampa, Fla.
“There’s a lot of hoopla that surrounds our program, our kids are used to dealing with — we call it, ‘The circus is in town.’ So when we get to the Final Four, it’s like everything else we do a lot of times during the year,” Auriemma said when asked how his newcomers might handle the Final Four experience.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
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