Turns out the Wildcats will not run it back to the final four after all. After winning their first tournament game in McKale since the 1990s, 4-seed Arizona (21-8) saw their run come to an end with a 63-45 loss to North Carolina in the round of 32 on Monday night in Tucson.

With a red out crowd of 8,333 fans, Arizona fed off of the crowd's energy but unlucky for them, they failed to impress in what was the final game as the Tar Heels went on a 10-0 run in the third quarter to put the game away.

Senior forward Sam Thomas played in her final college basketball game and did not disappoint despite the loss. In her last game, Thomas scored a team-high 15 points while shooting 50% from the field.

In the final seconds of the game, coach Adia Barnes called a timeout so that Thomas could get a standing ovation from the crowd one last time.

“I mean I don’t think there’s words for the experience that I’ve had with my time here,” Thomas said during an emotional press conference postgame. “It’s been anything more than I could have wished for, imagined for. Coming in my freshman year and only winning six games and then to become who I am academically, off the court, on the court and just last year the run we had and this year making it to the tournament and then obviously learning everything I have from Adia and this team.”

Guard Bendu Yeaney was second in team scoring tonight as she added 10 points to the Arizona stat line. With her already announcing her return next season, she will be taking on a leadership role in her final season and hopes to get the program back to a championship contender.

“I’m just gonna be hungry,” Yeaney said. “I think I might have to try and get our team hungry. We know today we didn’t really play that well. We didn’t really look hungry on the floor and so this is a bitter moment. Sam’s leaving so it sucks that I’m not gonna be on the floor with her again. But you know, for the freshman coming in next year they gotta be ready…”

The Wildcats started the game off slow, failing to make a majority of their shots especially in the first half. Overall, for the half, Arizona only shot 6-for-26 from the field.

Despite dominating in her first game back last round, Arizona forward Cate Reese struggled to get anything going early only having two points going into halftime. Thomas got candid about Reese after the game, who have lived together for the last three years.

“Just talking with Cate who has obviously been here for four out of my five years here,” Thomas said. “I’ve lived with her for the past three years. She’s like family to me now her sister and I were best friends, we came in together as well as freshman she was on the team. Just built a great relationship with her so obviously seeing her cry is going to make me cry…”

Offensively as a team, Arizona turned the ball over 14 times which led to 14 fast break points for the Tar Heels. The Wildcats’ defense created 15 turnovers but struggled to capitalize with only 12 fast break points against UNC.

Guard Shaina Pellington scored 30 points in Arizona’s first round win over UNLV matching a career high. However, she struggled against 5-seed UNC (24-6) shooting 1-for-9 and finishing three points.

Despite UNC using a smaller rotation than Arizona and giving their players less rest, the Wildcats were unable to stop them as they allowed three of UNC’s starters to combined for 46 points while shooting 44% from the field.

The Wildcats struggled to keep the Tar Heels away from the free-throw line with them scoring 19 points on 24 attempts. Arizona struggled to keep UNC away from the low post as it gave up 30 points in the paint.

“I think that at times, just not smart fouls. Just over aggression,” Barnes said. “Just unnecessary fouls. Not being smart. Sam never has four fouls. I think that was very uncharacteristic of Sam. I mean we can’t put North Carolina on the free-throw line 24 times, and we talked about it during pregame and our scouting. They’re really good on the free-throw line. Their core of seven shoots about 80%. So unnecessary fouls, out of position, and just things we didn’t execute down the stretch. So a little disappointment as a coach.”

Arizona was outscored by UNC 28-17 in the first half and was also outscored 33-28 in the second half however they managed to win the fourth quarter.

UA only held the lead in this game for a total of one minute and three seconds as the Tar Heels dominated the game from beginning to end.

Arizona now gets to start their offseason and start preparing for the 2022-23 season as the program hopes to replicate the Final Four run that it had during the 2020-21 season. The Wildcats will be losing Ariyah Copeland, Semaj Smith and Thomas to graduation.

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