Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Salpointe's Majok Deng can shine with Arizona Wildcats
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
In his first game since being offered a scholarship by Arizona’s Sean Miller, Salpointe Catholic sophomore Majok Deng scored 20 points in the second half of Friday’s impressive victory over host Sierra Vista Buena, the state’s No. 1-ranked Class 5A team.
Deng, who finished with 23, had a lot of help from his teammates: Alec McCall scored 19, Rylan O’Brien 15 and Cam Miller 11.
Friday’s game meant two things: Deng has become the most coveted Tucson prep basketball player since Sunnyside’s Deron Johnson in 1990, and the Lancers are a serious contender for the school’s first-ever state championship in 67 years.
Coach Brian Holstrom’s team, ranked No. 2 in Class 4A, is just 10-6 overall, but four of those six losses came against Class 6A opponents in Phoenix, including two games against 21-0 and No. 2 Basha, and teams from Utah and California.
Deng, a 6-foot 5-inch wing player who moved to Tucson from a South Sudan refugee camp in Kenya six years ago, has offers from, among others, Arizona State and Georgia Tech, and is likely to be a Top 50 prospect in the Class of 2019.
Incredibly, if you go back 50 years, to the 1965-66 Arizona basketball team, the Wildcats have only offered (and landed) four Tucson prospects, including Cholla’s Sean Elliott in 1985, who forever changed Arizona’s basketball trajectory.
- Sahuaro’s David Haskin, who started 29 games between 1983-86, and played for Lute Olson’s first Pac-10 championship team.
- CDO’s 7-1 Brian Jung, who only scored three points before transferring to Northwestern in 1977 and becoming a standout.
- Sunnyside’s Johnson, who couldn’t crack the starting lineup and left school after the ’93 season with a 3.8 career scoring average.
Many other Tucsonans became star-level players elsewhere, including UTEP’s Dave Feitl of Santa Rita; ASU’s Lafayette Lever of Pueblo; and Maryland’s Terrell Stoglin of Santa Rita. But it’s ironic how the UA’s link with Tucsonans has changed over those 50 years.
The ’65-66 team, for example, had three key players from Tucson: Flowing Wells’ Patrick McAndrew, Marana’s Tom Sutton and Tucson’s Mike Aboud.
And over the next five years, before McKale Center opened, the Wildcat roster was loaded with contributing Tucsonans, including Catalina’s Mickey Foster and Pueblo’s Eddie Myers. Foster scored 966 points; Myers 832.
But then the pipeline went dry. Only Elliott and Sunnyside’s Greg Cook, who began his career at Eastern Arizona College and then Pima College, have been regular starters on scholarship.
Now comes Deng, whose team figures to fight it out with two-time state champion Phoenix Shadow Mountain, coached by Arizona legend Mike Bibby, for the Class 4A title. Small world: Bibby’s team includes Jaelen House, his nephew and the son of ex-Arizona State scoring champion Eddie House.
But that’s a story for another day. Deng has 2½ seasons of high school basketball remaining in which he might give chase to Stoglin’s city scoring record of 2,901 points.
- Greg Hansen
Two months into their inaugural season, the Tucson Roadrunners are averaging 3,898 fans per game. That’s 26th among 30 American Hockey League franchises, trailing, among others, division rivals Bakersfield Condors (4,753) and Stockton Heat (4,086).
Now comes prime time. The Roadrunners have eight games in 19 days from Jan. 10 to Jan. 28 at Tucson Convention Center. Unfortunately, that schedule includes a Tuesday game, two on Wednesdays and another on Monday.
Tucson’s mid-winter population is at a peak and if ever the Roadrunners are going to average close to 5,000 fans, now is the time.
See them while you can: after a Jan. 28 game against the San Diego Gulls, the Roadrunners won’t play in Tucson for four weeks, until Feb. 24.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona’s Mike Candrea opens practice Monday at Hillenbrand Stadium. This will be Candrea’s 32nd year at the UA, and, for the first time since 2010, the Wildcats appear equipped to reach the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. One caution: the Pac-12 is loaded, as usual. UCLA is likely to be picked No.1 in the conference preseason forecast, followed by Arizona, Oregon and Washington, in some order. The Wildcats are 72-69 in conference games the six seasons, with a best of 14-10. If any team can finish 16-8 in the league these days, it’s probably worthy of hosting a super regional.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona baseball coach Jay Johnson was a featured speaker Friday at the America Baseball Coaches Convention in Anaheim, Calif. Johnson spoke on “offense and hitting approach” and shared the billing with Coastal Carolina coach Gary Gilmore, whose team edged the Wildcats in the finals of the College World Series. Johnson’s offseason, such as it is, is over. He will play host to some of the nation’s top high school prospects in a skills camp this week at Hi Corbett Field.
- Greg Hansen
After three years, Golf Channel did not renew the contract of Tucsonan Sara Brown Radley as the co-host of the weekly School of Golf Show. It replaced her with ex-ASU golfer Blair O’Neal. In my opinion, Golf Channel decision-makers replaced the wrong person; Sara’s former co-host, Martin Hall, is deadly dull and almost unwatchable.
- Greg Hansen
Whatever worry there was about Ka’Deem Carey absorbing too much punishment, carrying 743 times as an Arizona Wildcat, has abated. Carey finished his third NFL season with the Chicago Bears with just 126 rushing yards. Over three years, he has carried 111 times for 443 yards and started a single game for the Bears. But Carey won’t turn 25 until October and has one year left on his initial contract, for $690,000.
- Greg Hansen
UA signee Jordan Geist, the Pennsylvania Gatorade Track and Field Athlete of the Year who might be the top track prospect ever to commit to the Wildcats, had the performance of his young life a few days before Christmas. Geist, who is from the Pittsburgh area, threw the shot put 68 feet 4 inches in an indoor meet in Pennsylvania. That throw was better than any NCAA athlete in the shot put in the 2016 season. Geist is only 17. The throw qualified Geist for the IAAF World Championships next August in London. His throw eclipsed the top Division I shot put throw of ‘16 set by Filip Mihaljevic of Virginia. Mihaljevic threw a 67-11 1⁄2 to win the NCAA title.
- Greg Hansen
After point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright dished out nine assists (and no turnovers) last week against Utah, Sean Miller said he thought PJC might’ve had four more assists that weren’t included on the final statistics sheet. It’s not like the UA’s statistician crew just estimates the final totals. The eight-man crew is probably among the best in the country, with more than 100 years of collective experience. Retired Tucson judge Charles “Chuck” Sabalos, a former baseball standout at Rincon High School, records all statistics by hand, with help from seven others. When Sabalos became aware of Miller’s comment, he watched the replay of the Utah-UA game. He came up with the same figure, nine assists, and said that PJC would’ve gotten four more but his teammates missed shots on those would-be assists.
- Greg Hansen
Among the many NFL assistant coaches fired last week was ex-Arizona graduate assistant Kevin Patullo, who served two years as the New York Jets’ quarterbacks coach, and Washington Redskins defensive coordinator Joe Barry, who grew up in Tucson, the son of ex-UA offensive line coach Mike Barry and stepson of former Arizona defensive coordinator Moe Ankney. Among those surviving during the NFL’s annual “Black Monday” firing bloodbath was Philadelphia Eagles special teams coach David Fipp, a starting Arizona safety in the late ‘90s who coached for Dick Tomey at San Jose State. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson last week told Philadelphia reporters that Fipp “would be right for a head coaching opportunity. Fipp’s very detailed in his work, he’s very thorough in his work, he gets the guys to practice fast. He’s another one, as a coach, who keeps things very simplistic for the guys and allows them to execute and go out and play the scheme fast and aggressively.” Fipp was a walk-on from Helix High School in San Diego, the same school that produced standout Arizona safeties Allan Durden, Jeff Hammerschmidt and Brandon Sanders.
- Greg Hansen
Oregon State’s new athletic director, Scott Barnes, agreed to an $850,000-per-year contract last week. That sounds excessive, but it is simply the market rate in the Pac-12. Colorado’s Rick George is paid $754,000 per year, Arizona’s Greg Byrne will be raised from $675,000 to $700,000 this year and Utah’s Chris Hill is working on a $703,000-per year deal. Byrne’s contract runs through 2020.
- Greg Hansen
Tucson High grad Levi Wallace is listed a third-string cornerback for Alabama entering Monday’s national championship game against Clemson. Wallace, a junior who received a scholarship this season, has made 11 tackles this year and plays on many Crimson Tide special teams. He wears jersey No. 39.
- Greg Hansen
Lute Olson was in the San Diego audience Thursday night when his 1995 All-America point guard, Damon Stoudamire, coached Pacific to his first victory in the West Coast Conference, beating the San Diego Toreros. Stoudamire is off to a 7-9 start in his first season as a head coach.
- Greg Hansen
CDO and Arizona baseball product Shelley Duncan played host to about 350 young baseball players Saturday at Kino Sport Complex. It was Duncan’s sixth annual free baseball clinic for Tucson kids aged 6-14; among his guest coaches were MLB All-Stars Kenny Lofton and J.J. Hardy. It was a good week for Duncan; at a time the Arizona Diamondbacks have made sweeping changes in their organization, they promoted Duncan from manager of Class A-Short Hillsboro (Ore.) to the Class A-Advanced Visalia Rawhide. In the movies, that’s where “Bull Durham” Crash Davis was headed. To Duncan, it’s the next step in his goal to become a big-league manager.
- Greg Hansen
The Diamondbacks are expected to return ex-UA and Pima College pitcher Gil Heredia as pitching coach at Class AAA Reno; Heredia was interviewed for the bullpen coaching spot on new manager Torey Lovullo‘s staff.
- Greg Hansen
n 2003, desperate UA football coach John Mackovic hired 29-year-old Central Missouri State assistant Jeff Hecklinski to be Arizona’s quarterbacks coach.
Mackovic was fired mid-season, and Hecklinski went on a coaching odyssey that has taken him from Ball State and Colorado State-Pueblo to Michigan and now Illinois, where he is the special teams coordinator.
When Arizona’s new linebackers coach, Scott Boone, began his job at the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility last week, he retweeted one of Hecklinski’s tweets. It read:
“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
How fitting. Just as with Hecklinski at Arizona in 2003, when he inherited a talent-challenged quarterbacking crew that included freshman Kris Heavner and newcomers Ryan O’Hara and Nic Costa, Boone faces one of the most difficult coaching challenges of anyone in the Pac-12.
On Friday, the UA learned that its top incoming (on paper) linebacker/pass rushing prospect, Phoenix Desert Ridge’s Jalen Harris, was offered a scholarship by Notre Dame.
Gulp.
- Greg Hansen
In his first game since being offered a scholarship by Arizona’s Sean Miller, Salpointe Catholic sophomore Majok Deng scored 20 points in the second half of Friday’s impressive victory over host Sierra Vista Buena, the state’s No. 1-ranked Class 5A team.
Deng, who finished with 23, had a lot of help from his teammates: Alec McCall scored 19, Rylan O’Brien 15 and Cam Miller 11.
Friday’s game meant two things: Deng has become the most coveted Tucson prep basketball player since Sunnyside’s Deron Johnson in 1990, and the Lancers are a serious contender for the school’s first-ever state championship in 67 years.
Coach Brian Holstrom’s team, ranked No. 2 in Class 4A, is just 10-6 overall, but four of those six losses came against Class 6A opponents in Phoenix, including two games against 21-0 and No. 2 Basha, and teams from Utah and California.
Deng, a 6-foot 5-inch wing player who moved to Tucson from a South Sudan refugee camp in Kenya six years ago, has offers from, among others, Arizona State and Georgia Tech, and is likely to be a Top 50 prospect in the Class of 2019.
Incredibly, if you go back 50 years, to the 1965-66 Arizona basketball team, the Wildcats have only offered (and landed) four Tucson prospects, including Cholla’s Sean Elliott in 1985, who forever changed Arizona’s basketball trajectory.
- Sahuaro’s David Haskin, who started 29 games between 1983-86, and played for Lute Olson’s first Pac-10 championship team.
- CDO’s 7-1 Brian Jung, who only scored three points before transferring to Northwestern in 1977 and becoming a standout.
- Sunnyside’s Johnson, who couldn’t crack the starting lineup and left school after the ’93 season with a 3.8 career scoring average.
Many other Tucsonans became star-level players elsewhere, including UTEP’s Dave Feitl of Santa Rita; ASU’s Lafayette Lever of Pueblo; and Maryland’s Terrell Stoglin of Santa Rita. But it’s ironic how the UA’s link with Tucsonans has changed over those 50 years.
The ’65-66 team, for example, had three key players from Tucson: Flowing Wells’ Patrick McAndrew, Marana’s Tom Sutton and Tucson’s Mike Aboud.
And over the next five years, before McKale Center opened, the Wildcat roster was loaded with contributing Tucsonans, including Catalina’s Mickey Foster and Pueblo’s Eddie Myers. Foster scored 966 points; Myers 832.
But then the pipeline went dry. Only Elliott and Sunnyside’s Greg Cook, who began his career at Eastern Arizona College and then Pima College, have been regular starters on scholarship.
Now comes Deng, whose team figures to fight it out with two-time state champion Phoenix Shadow Mountain, coached by Arizona legend Mike Bibby, for the Class 4A title. Small world: Bibby’s team includes Jaelen House, his nephew and the son of ex-Arizona State scoring champion Eddie House.
But that’s a story for another day. Deng has 2½ seasons of high school basketball remaining in which he might give chase to Stoglin’s city scoring record of 2,901 points.
- Greg Hansen
Two months into their inaugural season, the Tucson Roadrunners are averaging 3,898 fans per game. That’s 26th among 30 American Hockey League franchises, trailing, among others, division rivals Bakersfield Condors (4,753) and Stockton Heat (4,086).
Now comes prime time. The Roadrunners have eight games in 19 days from Jan. 10 to Jan. 28 at Tucson Convention Center. Unfortunately, that schedule includes a Tuesday game, two on Wednesdays and another on Monday.
Tucson’s mid-winter population is at a peak and if ever the Roadrunners are going to average close to 5,000 fans, now is the time.
See them while you can: after a Jan. 28 game against the San Diego Gulls, the Roadrunners won’t play in Tucson for four weeks, until Feb. 24.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona’s Mike Candrea opens practice Monday at Hillenbrand Stadium. This will be Candrea’s 32nd year at the UA, and, for the first time since 2010, the Wildcats appear equipped to reach the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. One caution: the Pac-12 is loaded, as usual. UCLA is likely to be picked No.1 in the conference preseason forecast, followed by Arizona, Oregon and Washington, in some order. The Wildcats are 72-69 in conference games the six seasons, with a best of 14-10. If any team can finish 16-8 in the league these days, it’s probably worthy of hosting a super regional.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona baseball coach Jay Johnson was a featured speaker Friday at the America Baseball Coaches Convention in Anaheim, Calif. Johnson spoke on “offense and hitting approach” and shared the billing with Coastal Carolina coach Gary Gilmore, whose team edged the Wildcats in the finals of the College World Series. Johnson’s offseason, such as it is, is over. He will play host to some of the nation’s top high school prospects in a skills camp this week at Hi Corbett Field.
- Greg Hansen
After three years, Golf Channel did not renew the contract of Tucsonan Sara Brown Radley as the co-host of the weekly School of Golf Show. It replaced her with ex-ASU golfer Blair O’Neal. In my opinion, Golf Channel decision-makers replaced the wrong person; Sara’s former co-host, Martin Hall, is deadly dull and almost unwatchable.
- Greg Hansen
Whatever worry there was about Ka’Deem Carey absorbing too much punishment, carrying 743 times as an Arizona Wildcat, has abated. Carey finished his third NFL season with the Chicago Bears with just 126 rushing yards. Over three years, he has carried 111 times for 443 yards and started a single game for the Bears. But Carey won’t turn 25 until October and has one year left on his initial contract, for $690,000.
- Greg Hansen
UA signee Jordan Geist, the Pennsylvania Gatorade Track and Field Athlete of the Year who might be the top track prospect ever to commit to the Wildcats, had the performance of his young life a few days before Christmas. Geist, who is from the Pittsburgh area, threw the shot put 68 feet 4 inches in an indoor meet in Pennsylvania. That throw was better than any NCAA athlete in the shot put in the 2016 season. Geist is only 17. The throw qualified Geist for the IAAF World Championships next August in London. His throw eclipsed the top Division I shot put throw of ‘16 set by Filip Mihaljevic of Virginia. Mihaljevic threw a 67-11 1⁄2 to win the NCAA title.
- Greg Hansen
After point guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright dished out nine assists (and no turnovers) last week against Utah, Sean Miller said he thought PJC might’ve had four more assists that weren’t included on the final statistics sheet. It’s not like the UA’s statistician crew just estimates the final totals. The eight-man crew is probably among the best in the country, with more than 100 years of collective experience. Retired Tucson judge Charles “Chuck” Sabalos, a former baseball standout at Rincon High School, records all statistics by hand, with help from seven others. When Sabalos became aware of Miller’s comment, he watched the replay of the Utah-UA game. He came up with the same figure, nine assists, and said that PJC would’ve gotten four more but his teammates missed shots on those would-be assists.
- Greg Hansen
Among the many NFL assistant coaches fired last week was ex-Arizona graduate assistant Kevin Patullo, who served two years as the New York Jets’ quarterbacks coach, and Washington Redskins defensive coordinator Joe Barry, who grew up in Tucson, the son of ex-UA offensive line coach Mike Barry and stepson of former Arizona defensive coordinator Moe Ankney. Among those surviving during the NFL’s annual “Black Monday” firing bloodbath was Philadelphia Eagles special teams coach David Fipp, a starting Arizona safety in the late ‘90s who coached for Dick Tomey at San Jose State. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson last week told Philadelphia reporters that Fipp “would be right for a head coaching opportunity. Fipp’s very detailed in his work, he’s very thorough in his work, he gets the guys to practice fast. He’s another one, as a coach, who keeps things very simplistic for the guys and allows them to execute and go out and play the scheme fast and aggressively.” Fipp was a walk-on from Helix High School in San Diego, the same school that produced standout Arizona safeties Allan Durden, Jeff Hammerschmidt and Brandon Sanders.
- Greg Hansen
Oregon State’s new athletic director, Scott Barnes, agreed to an $850,000-per-year contract last week. That sounds excessive, but it is simply the market rate in the Pac-12. Colorado’s Rick George is paid $754,000 per year, Arizona’s Greg Byrne will be raised from $675,000 to $700,000 this year and Utah’s Chris Hill is working on a $703,000-per year deal. Byrne’s contract runs through 2020.
- Greg Hansen
Tucson High grad Levi Wallace is listed a third-string cornerback for Alabama entering Monday’s national championship game against Clemson. Wallace, a junior who received a scholarship this season, has made 11 tackles this year and plays on many Crimson Tide special teams. He wears jersey No. 39.
- Greg Hansen
Lute Olson was in the San Diego audience Thursday night when his 1995 All-America point guard, Damon Stoudamire, coached Pacific to his first victory in the West Coast Conference, beating the San Diego Toreros. Stoudamire is off to a 7-9 start in his first season as a head coach.
- Greg Hansen
CDO and Arizona baseball product Shelley Duncan played host to about 350 young baseball players Saturday at Kino Sport Complex. It was Duncan’s sixth annual free baseball clinic for Tucson kids aged 6-14; among his guest coaches were MLB All-Stars Kenny Lofton and J.J. Hardy. It was a good week for Duncan; at a time the Arizona Diamondbacks have made sweeping changes in their organization, they promoted Duncan from manager of Class A-Short Hillsboro (Ore.) to the Class A-Advanced Visalia Rawhide. In the movies, that’s where “Bull Durham” Crash Davis was headed. To Duncan, it’s the next step in his goal to become a big-league manager.
- Greg Hansen
The Diamondbacks are expected to return ex-UA and Pima College pitcher Gil Heredia as pitching coach at Class AAA Reno; Heredia was interviewed for the bullpen coaching spot on new manager Torey Lovullo‘s staff.
- Greg Hansen
n 2003, desperate UA football coach John Mackovic hired 29-year-old Central Missouri State assistant Jeff Hecklinski to be Arizona’s quarterbacks coach.
Mackovic was fired mid-season, and Hecklinski went on a coaching odyssey that has taken him from Ball State and Colorado State-Pueblo to Michigan and now Illinois, where he is the special teams coordinator.
When Arizona’s new linebackers coach, Scott Boone, began his job at the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility last week, he retweeted one of Hecklinski’s tweets. It read:
“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
How fitting. Just as with Hecklinski at Arizona in 2003, when he inherited a talent-challenged quarterbacking crew that included freshman Kris Heavner and newcomers Ryan O’Hara and Nic Costa, Boone faces one of the most difficult coaching challenges of anyone in the Pac-12.
On Friday, the UA learned that its top incoming (on paper) linebacker/pass rushing prospect, Phoenix Desert Ridge’s Jalen Harris, was offered a scholarship by Notre Dame.
Gulp.
