NCAA left Arizona out of women's Final Four hype video: 'Stuff like that shouldn't happen'
The NCAA released a short promotional video for the women’s Final Four on Thursday, but it somehow only featured three teams.
No, that wasn’t an April Fools’ Day joke — and Arizona took that to heart.
The video, which the NCAA tweeted out on Thursday, featured South Carolina, Stanford and UConn ahead of Friday’s games. The Wildcats, who reached the Final Four for the first time in school history, were nowhere to be found.
"I rewatched it a couple of times," Arizona guard Aari McDonald said, via ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel. "It was frustrating. I definitely took it as a sign of disrespect."
NCAA apologized for error
The NCAA said Thursday that leaving Arizona out of the video was simply an accident, and that they deleted the video instantly after learning of the error.
An Arizona spokesperson told ESPN that the NCAA sent the team an apology over Twitter, too — where the team’s account had called out the since-deleted video earlier in the day with a single emoji.
— Arizona Women's Basketball (@ArizonaWBB) April 1, 2021
"We will continue to work hard to recognize all four of the Women's Final Four teams for their incredible runs and remarkable seasons," an NCAA spokeswoman said in a statement, via ESPN.
Arizona will take on UConn in its Final Four matchup on Friday night, following the South Carolina-Stanford matchup. The Wildcats, after snagging double-digit wins against Texas A&M and Indiana in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, are the only team in the Final Four that isn’t a No. 1 seed in the tournament.
"Those are things that get missed, sometimes, and shouldn't be,” Arizona coach Adia Barnes said about the video, via ESPN. “Because there are four teams that have worked really hard to get here. Stuff like that shouldn't happen."
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