There might have been no team on Arizona's campus impacted more by the shutdown of college sports due to the coronavirus spread than the women's basketball team led by head coach Adia Barnes. The Wildcats surpassed many preseason expectations by winning 24 games this season and had positioned themselves to host in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

However, while awaiting word on who they would be playing and what seed they would receive, word came down that the Wildcats would not have any more games as the NCAA canceled the tournament and shut down college sports.

It came as a surprise to Barnes who said last week that she didn't believe it would reach that point. Soon after getting the official word, the UA head coach had to deliver the message to her team.

"That was hard because I didn't want to cry because I knew it was an emotional time," Barnes said last week during a virtual press conference with local media. "I kept myself together. ... It was just a hard moment because they put their hearts out, we exceeded everybody's expectations in the country, we did so many amazing things, we only lost two games all year that we should've won.

"... We beat people that no one thought we'd beat. So I think I was just heartbroken for the Lucias who came here when our program was awful, for the Dominiques that transferred, for Amari who had never been to the tournament. Those things were hard. Then Aari who worked so hard through pain the last couple months wanting to make the tournament.

"My heart was broken for all of that stuff because it's your blood, sweat and tears the whole year. So, it was hard to swallow."

The reality of the situation for college programs began to settle in before the NCAA Tournament was canceled for Barnes when she learned that the work her team had put in to be in the position to host was likely for naught.

"I was devastated at first because I heard that we were gonna play without fans," she said. "So that was the first part that I was like, 'we've worked so hard to play at home and the whole purpose of playing at home is to sell out McKale and have 15,000 fans. So, I was devastated by that and was like, 'it's not an advantage if you're gonna play with no fans at home."

Barnes admits that she didn't think the NCAA Tournament would ever reach a point when it would need to be canceled. That reality took some time to hit her even after it was announced to the public.

"It didn't even set in for like two three weeks after that because it was just surreal," she said. "I thought, 'oh, well, maybe they'll reverse it.' I didn't really think that was actually gonna ever happen."

Barnes has now turned her attention to next season and planning for the return of her team to UA as the team hopes to begin preparations at some point this summer but the sting of missing out on what the group had worked for over the last year certainly remains.