With an unceremonious 78-34 loss to Cal on Sunday, Mar. 1, SMU women’s basketball completed a season to forget in head coach Adia Barnes’ first year at the helm.
In two years in the ACC, women’s basketball has been one of the few teams unable to find its footing in a new conference. After going 2-16 in 2024-25, the Mustangs replicated their effort with a 2-16 record in ACC play in 2025-26. Overall, this year’s squad finished 9-21, SMU’s worst finish in a complete season since 2014-15.
Barnes, who spent nine years coaching at Arizona before being hired at SMU, is no stranger to rebuilding a program. In her second year with the Wildcats, they went 6-24, but the next five seasons all ended with 20+ win seasons. In 2021, she even led Arizona to a national championship appearance.
“This will be my last time being in this situation, I’ll tell you that much,” Barnes said in an interview on Feb. 26.
The 2025-26 SMU Mustangs were well out of reach of an NCAA tournament appearance, failing to even make the ACC Tournament. Within the 18-team conference, SMU ranked 17th in offense and 16th in defense, allowing the second-worst points per game margin in the ACC.
Sophomore Zahra King provided the lone bright spot for SMU’s offense. King averaged 14.4 points per game and led the team in three-pointers, free throws and steals. Tyi Skinner had a strong start to the season, even scoring 27 points in a single game, but was injured just as ACC play started.
Kyla Deck, the third-highest scorer behind King and Skinner, was also injured early in the season. To make matters worse, Paulina Paris, the fourth-highest scorer for SMU, tore her meniscus and ACL in early February, leaving King with next to no other offensive weapons for the latter half of ACC play.
Sahnya Jah averaged 9.3 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, and Anaya Brown led the team with 154 total rebounds. Of the 12 players who received playing time this season, eight are graduating seniors.
SMU started the season favorably, scoring a season-high 96 points in a win over Grambling State. After five straight losses, the Mustangs got back on track, winning six of their next seven. One such win was against Arkansas, a victory on Dec. 4 as part of the ACC/SEC Tournament Challenge. In non-conference play, SMU had a positive record of 7-5.
The Mustangs opened the ACC schedule at home versus Syracuse on Dec. 7, losing 78-69. They wouldn’t get their first ACC win until Jan. 18, defeating Pittsburgh 83-76 on the road. Pittsburgh, one of two teams to finish 1-17 in the conference, represented both of SMU’s ACC wins.
The first Pitt win was followed by six consecutive losses, including brutal defeats of 50+ points against Duke and North Carolina. In its home game against Pitt, SMU narrowly won again, surviving a fourth-quarter meltdown to win 79-78.
With only the top-15 teams making the ACC tournament, SMU needed to jump ahead of Wake Forest to have a chance at postseason play. However, those dreams were quickly wiped out as the Mustangs became Boston College’s only win in the conference, losing at home to the Eagles 77-59. Boston College entered the game on a 20-game losing streak and ultimately fired its head coach at the end of the season.
“You can’t just let someone manhandle you,” Barnes said after the Boston College loss. “They just outwilled us, they outmuscled us, they outwanted us.”
In the end, SMU lost its last four games to finish the season 9-21. With two disappointing seasons in the ACC, Barnes and the Mustangs will look to improve via the transfer portal and high school recruits to establish themselves as a Power Four basketball program.
