Former Arizona forward Lauren Ware lands at Texas A&M women’s basketball

Former Arizona forward Cate Reese came to the Wildcats from Texas. Now, her two best friends from the team will be playing in her home state. Last month, former Arizona guard Madi Conner announced her commitment to Texas Christian. On Monday, former Wildcat forward Lauren Ware committed to Texas A&M.

Ware sat out last season after dislocating her patella for the second time. She had surgery, then went through rehabilitation. She returned to practice late in the season, but head coach Adia Barnes said it wasn’t worth using her in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments because it would cost her an entire season.

In her two seasons on the court for Arizona, she averaged 4.8 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks in 18.8 minutes per game. She started 24 games for the Wildcats as a sophomore.

Ware originally committed to play for both Arizona basketball and volleyball, but she never played for the volleyball team. The pandemic caused the sports to overlap when volleyball was moved to the spring during her freshman season. She played in a spring tournament with the volleyball team in 2022 but ultimately did not return to the program.

Barnes praised Ware as the team’s best interior defender, saying that her loss was a big blow to Arizona last year. Barnes has addressed some of those issues this offseason by adding multiple frontcourt players via the transfer portal as well as getting both Esmery Martinez and Maya Nnaji to return from last season. She will also add freshman Breya Cunningham to the mix.

The Aggies went 9-20 last season. They finished 2-14 in the SEC.