Hansen's Sunday Notebook: RichRod, Cats have difficult task ahead

RichRod, Wildcats have work cut out for them following injuries

A minute or two after 11 Thursday night, I walked to the UTSA locker room underneath Arizona Stadium and heard the strangest thing.

Applause.

About 200 UTSA fans/family/friends greeted the Roadrunner players and coaching staff with one round of cheers after another. And yet UTSA lost 42-32.

But that was just the scoreboard. UTSA won the game in every other facet. The Roadrunners staff put on a coaching clinic, setting school records for 525 yards and 95 plays. Arizona backpedaled. It had no answer defensively.

Remember, this is a team that last year gained 70 total yards against UTEP. Yes, UTEP. It is a team that played 11 freshmen Thursday, a team for which 11 players made their first career start.

Here’s some better perspective: Over the last 10 seasons against non-Power 5 conference opponents, Arizona allowed an average of 301 yards per game. In those 24 games, no one gained more than 446 yards, and that was an undefeated, 12-0 powerhouse Utah team of 2004.

What ails the UA defense isn’t going to be easily corrected, even if Scooby Wright is physically able to return by the Pac-12 opener against UCLA on Sept. 26.

Recruiting errors in the Class of 2014, especially linebackers Jamardre Cobb, Antonio Smothers and Marquis Ware, have made Arizona desperately thin in an area often exploited by opposing offensive coordinators.

I’m not suggesting this will be a lost season, not given Rich Rodriguez’s resourceful coaching history, but he’ll be the Pac-12’s Coach of the Year again if he and his staff can restore Arizona’s defense into an effective unit anytime soon.

UA HOF inductees winners at games, life 

Dave Baldwin was 12-0 when he pitched Tucson High to the 1956 state championship and 10-2 when he pitched Arizona to the championship game of the 1959 College World Series.

It took him more than 50 years to be selected and inducted into the UA’s Sports Hall of Fame. It was a productive period in which he got his masters and doctorate degrees from the UA, pitched six seasons in the major leagues, learned how to play the violin, became an accomplished artist (one of his paintings was put on display at the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York) and wrote a book, “Snake Jazz,” on his life.

When Baldwin was inducted into the Hall of Fame on Friday night at the Westin La Paloma, 11 of his UA teammates were in the audience. Talk about having a legacy.

It didn’t take four-time NCAA swimming champ Jean Basson quite as long for induction. The 2008 and 2012 Olympic swimmer, now a financial analyst in Phoenix, returned for the ceremony where his former coach, Frank Busch, greeted him. Busch, now director of USA Swimming’s National Teams, had flown in from Colorado.

The Class of 2015 was typically impressive. Basson earned a finance degree from the UA’s Eller College of Business. Adam Ritter, a former NCAA swimming champion who also returned to Tucson, is now the treasurer of Florida-based RCP Shelters, a firm that designs and builds roofs and shelters for municipalities and cities nationwide. Susan Slaughter, who won the 1990 NCAA golf championship, is the mother of three, married to a man in the Washington D.C. area who owns more than 25 McDonald’s franchises. She also returned to Tucson, this time with her family.

In the end, it’s not about the games and championships they won at Arizona. It’s how well they’ve played the game of life.

Red-Blue Game could be big factor in luring 6-11 Finnish center to UA 

Although the UA didn’t sell the remainder of its Red-Blue Game basketball tickets in 18 seconds on Saturday — remember, last year’s sale didn’t include 4,500 upper deck seats that were under construction — it’ll surely be full on Oct. 17. The importance of that day grew last week when 6-foot-11-inch Finnish center Lauri Markkanen learned that one of the three schools he is considering, North Carolina, got a commitment from 6-10 super-recruit Tony Bradley. It seems likely that Markkanen will now choose between Utah (which he visits Oct. 11) and Arizona, which he will visit the weekend of the Red-Blue Game. I’ve still got to think that Markkanen’s club coach in Helsinki, ex-Ute center Hanno Mottola, will be a key figure in Markkanen’s decision. 

Miller chooses practice over days off 

Within the UA athletic department, Sean Miller is known as much for his work ethic as his recruiting and coaching skills. No wonder. Rather than take the last weekend of August off, Miller worked out on Saturday afternoon with guards Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Justin Simon and did the same on Sunday with Dusan Ristic and Ryan Anderson. Miller then engineered a 6 a.m. practice on Wednesday. Can’t imagine all the Pac-12 coaches doing the same. 

Pride of Arizona works as hard as Arizona football program 

More on worth ethic: Of the 51,111 people at Arizona Stadium on Thursday night, few knew what it took for the Pride of Arizona to be in working form on opening night. The marching band probably put in as much, or more, training camp time than Rich Rodriguez’s football team. And most of their daily rehearsals were in the mid-day sun. Rather than kick back and take a long Labor Day weekend after the UTSA game, the UA’s band was back on the McKale lawn at 2:30 Friday afternoon for a 90-minute rehearsal. 

Ex-UA coach Hankwitz proves age just a number 

The architect of the Northwestern defense that chopped up 21st-ranked Stanford on Saturday was Mike Hankwitz, who coached at Arizona from 1973-76, and again in 2003, when he became the UA’s interim head coach after John Mackovic was fired. At 67, Hankwitz has shown that it’s not about age. It’s about ability.

Argraves, family enjoy moments in the sun 

It was a good week for Tucson High football coach Justin Argraves. Not only did the Badgers beat CDO 48-35 on Friday, advancing to 2-0 on the year, his brother-in-law, ex-Sahuaro and Pima College baseball standout Jared McDonald, was featured on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.” McDonald made an over-the-head diving catch in center field Wednesday when his team, the Rockland Boulders, beat Ottawa in a Can-Am League game. ESPN ranked it the No. 7 Play of the Day. McDonald is hitting .332 for the first-place Boulders. 

Tucson High RB Lockwood the son of UA coach 

Argraves is using sophomore running back Jeff Lockwood, who has gained 93 yards rushing in two games. He is the son of UA cornerbacks coach David Lockwood, whose daughter, Autumn, played for UA soccer in 2013 before taking a position with the school’s athletic media relations department. 

Mountain View's Lovett received family's football genes 

Here’s a name to watch: Isaiah Lovett. He is the son of ex-UA running back Lamont Lovett, who has been the UA’s football radio analyst for 12 years. Isaiah, a 6-4, 180-pound junior receiver at Mountain View, has already caught 11 passes for 385 yards in two Mountain Lions victories, including two catches of 80 yards or more. Talk about good genes. Isaiah’s father gained 2,000 yards as a high school senior tailback at Los Angeles Franklin in 1988 and 582 yards at Arizona. His uncle, Lamar Lovett, caught 46 passes for the Wildcats in the early ’90s. Lamar is now a pastor in Atlanta. Lamont is a financial services adviser. 

Does Candrea's squad have what it takes? 

UA softball coach Mike Candrea will find out early in 2016 if his club has Women’s College World Series potential. He scheduled two games in late February at Alabama, which is apt to open the season ranked No. 1, or close. The Crimson Tide beat Pac-12 champion Oregon at the Women’s College World Series in June and returns its two leading pitchers, Sydney Littlejohn and Alexis Osorio, who combined to win 38 games last year. 

Pac-12 basketball acquires another Kerr 

There is officially another Kerr in Pac-12 basketball. Nick Kerr, son of Steve Kerr, has been added to Cal’s 2015-16 roster. He will wear jersey No. 20 after transferring from the University of San Diego. 

Dykes, Cal could finish No. 2 in Pac-12 North 

After watching Washington and Stanford lose this weekend, and witnessing Portland State’s upset of Washington State as well as Oregon State’s struggles against Weber State, it’s clear that Cal coach Sonny Dykes, Arizona’s former offensive coordinator, has a good chance to finish second behind Oregon in the Pac-12 North. Arizona “misses” Oregon and Cal this season. That’s some promising news after a testy night against UTSA. 

Three Tucsonans the favorites in USA 20K championships 

Tucsonans Abdi Abdirahman, Craig Curley and Tara Erdmann Welling are among the favorites in the USA 20K championships to be run Monday in New Haven, Connecticut. Erdmann, a Flowing Wells grad who was an All-American at Loyola Marymount, has left the Oregon Nike Project and is now sponsored by Sketchers. Abdirahman, a four-time Olympian from Pima College and the UA, won the 20K title in 2011 and was third in 2013. The winners will earn $10,000. 

Scooby's injury not a focal point in Pac-12's broadcast 

I watched the Pac-12 Networks replay of the UA-UTSA game and Scooby Wright’s injury attracted so little attention — lost in a crowd of bodies — that it wasn’t until six plays later, after a commercial, that analyst Glenn Parker mentioned it. Some of it is that the UA’s red jerseys with blue numerals are so difficult to see from a distance that you need high-powered binoculars to know who’s who. 

Ex-Rincon pitcher Darcy honored at Reds' ballpark 

It was good to see Tucsonan Pat Darcy honored at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark last week as part of the Reds’ 40th anniversary celebration of the 1975 world championship. Darcy, a former Rincon High pitcher who is now a Tucson commercial real estate specialist, was one of 12 players invited to return to Cincinnati for the weekend. Darcy won 11 games for the Big Red Machine in ’75.

My two cents: New facilities will re-ignite Pac-12's arms race 

When the slow-moving Colorado Buffaloes complete a $170 million makeover of their football plant, and soon thereafter UCLA finishes a $45 million football re-do, every Pac-12 football team will have put itself into significant debt service to keep pace in the league’s arms race.

And then it will begin again.

Oregon last week announced that Nike co-founder Phil Knight will fund the Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Center near Autzen Stadium, estimated at about $25 million, which will keep the Ducks a step ahead of everybody.

The 29,000-square-foot project will include a sports-science coordinator, a sleep-recovery center for athletes, and a 3-D “motion capture” center with technology that not even all NFL teams have.

Knight said he hopes to create a “Niketown-

type atmosphere.”

Fundraising for a similar facility will inevitably begin soon at a Pac-12 school near you.

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