Arizona women’s basketball breaks Pac-12 attendance record for WNIT championship game

The Arizona women’s basketball team has broken the Pac-12 women’s basketball single-game attendance record for Saturday’s WNIT championship game vs. Northwestern.

It is not clear exactly how many tickets UA has sold, but the previous record was 12,364 set by Oregon in February when the Ducks hosted Oregon State.

When this story published the Wildcats were less than 2,000 ticket sales away from selling out the 14,644-seat McKale Center, which is suddenly a very realistic outcome for the upstart program.

In fact, head coach Adia Barnes expects it.

“This place will sell out. I’m pretty confident,” she said Friday afternoon. “I think the problem is going to be, and this is a good problem to have, is something some people aren’t going to buy them early, and there’s going to be a line and some people disappointed outside. Because we’re way ahead of where I thought we’d be. But it’s extremely meaningful. It’s extremely special. If you would have told me in your third year you guys are going to go to the WNIT finals and draw 40,000 people, I would have said you’re a jerk and that’s not funny. ... But now you see (the attendance) is up every game, everybody’s excited. People have not been excited about women’s basketball like this in probably 20-plus years.”

Saturday’s game is slated for noon on CBS Sports Network.