Arizona women’s basketball head coach Adia Barnes wants 14,000 bodies in the seats in McKale Center this Saturday, preferably wearing University of Arizona red and blue.

The Arizona Athletics social media team must have been reading Barnes’s Twitter feed. On Thursday morning, the arena’s social media team sent out a message with a simple goal — “Operation Sell Out McKale.”

This comes on the heels of Arizona’s first-round match up against No. 13 University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Saturday, March 19 — the first time the No. 4 Arizona has hosted an NCAA tournament game since 1998. 

Barnes, in her Wednesday night tweet, said over 8,000 tickets — more than half of McKale’s 14,655 capacity — had been sold. Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Matt Ensor could not provide specific numbers on Thursday. 

Those who purchase tickets for Saturday’s match up can attend both of the first-round games in McKale, starting with No. 12 Stephen F. Austin State University taking on No. 5 University of North Carolina at 4:30 p.m. The Wildcats play at 7.

As of Thursday, a limited number of seats for Saturday’s games remained in the middle sections 20-23 and higher-level sections 115A to 115C.

To buy a ticket, visit the UA’s ticket website for available seats or any in-person ticket office on campus. 

Fun fact

If McKale Center is sold out on Saturday, it would be the second largest crowd to see a UA women’s game in program history. The first came in 2019 when 14,644 fans filled McKale to see the Wildcats win the WNIT, setting not only a school record but a Pac-12 record for biggest crowd for a women’s basketball game. The women saw their largest ever regular season crowd of 10,413 when they faced Oregon on Feb. 4.

*El Inde Arizona is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.

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