When it comes to recruiting international players, Adia Barnes is the master of it.
Since taking over as the Arizona Wildcats women’s basketball coach in April 2016, the Wildcats have landed roughly a dozen foreign recruits from countries like Australia, Spain, Turkey, Iceland, and Latvia.
Barnes has plenty of connections overseas because she played there professionally and her husband Salvo Coppa, a UA assistant and Italian, used to live and coach there.
The Arizona men’s basketball team has recruited international players before—and had some pretty good success with them —but took it to a whole new level in this recruiting cycle by signing four international players in Kerr Kriisa (Estonia), Daniel Batcho (France), Bennedict Mathurin (Canada) and Tibet Gorener (Turkey).