Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Shorthanded Arizona Wildcats surviving, but big games remain
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The first month of college basketball has done what it always does: It identifies a team’s weaknesses.
Butler found Twiggy-thin Arizona to be susceptible to foul trouble. Gonzaga discovered that when closely guarded, Arizona couldn’t hit the broadside of a 3-point shot (the Wildcats were 1 for 8).
Already, 344 of the 351 Division I teams have lost.
It works both ways.
On Saturday, Missouri did what you expected Missouri to do: the Tigers, ranked No. 302 of 351 Division I teams with an average shooting percentage of 41 percent, shot 32 percent against Arizona.
Game over.
Foul trouble for Lauri Markkanen? No problem.
Seven scholarship players available? Not a factor.
Missouri was so unsettled it strayed from strength and used three defenses. That rarely works, violating one of the rules of basketball coaching: Do what you do best. Eventually, all three Mizzou defenses broke down. So it was Saturday when Arizona swished 13 3-pointers.
Missouri wasn’t good enough to exploit Arizona’s flaws.
The seven undefeated Division I teams are likely to get to Christmas Day without a loss because none figure to be sufficiently challenged until they begin conference play.
The revelation of the first month has been 8-0 Baylor, which beat Oregon, Michigan State, Louisville and Xavier.
Creighton and Villanova, both 10-0, are apt to be 13-0 when the two collide on New Year’s Eve.
Gonzaga (10-0) seems sure to be 22-0 when it visits BYU in early February. South Carolina (8-0) could be the fraud among the seven unbeatens.
The most enticing twosome is UCLA and USC, both unscathed, both with some muscle-growing victories: the Bruins at Kentucky and the Trojans at Texas A&M.
When USC and UCLA open the Pac-12 season later this month in Oregon, it’s likely both will still be perfect. USC plays Pepperdine, Troy, Cornell and Missouri State before opening at Oregon State. The Bruins meet UC Santa Barbara, Western Michigan and face Ohio State in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Either way, the focus of Pac-12 hoops has shifted from Arizona and Oregon to Los Angeles. It is a refreshing change. But if Allonzo Trier and Parker Jackson-Cartwright return to Arizona’s lineup by the time the Wildcats visit Los Angeles January 19-21, those losses to Butler and Gonzaga — and a possible setback on Saturday at Texas A&M — will be long forgotten.
In college basketball, all of the big games await.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Bit by bit, since Brian Peabody began his head basketball coaching career in 1990, he has gained on the enduring legends of Tucson men’s basketball coaching: Bud Doolen of Tucson High; George Genung of Amphi; Norm Patton of Marana High School and Pima College; Joe Acker of Marana and Peabody’s mentor, Dick McConnell of Sahuaro.
Finally, with a victory over Eastern Arizona College on Wednesday, Peabody hit No. 500.
Peabody, who played for McConnell at Sahuaro and was a Cougar assistant for eight years, has a long way to go if he wants to surpass McConnell’s 774 career victories, but hitting 500 puts him in rare company.
Acker probably won 500 or more in 32 years at Marana, but as with Genung at Amphi, didn’t keep count year to year. “I don’t even know my record,” Genung told me after retiring from 31 years at Amphi.
Patton surely exceeded 500 if you count his Marana, PCC and Central Arizona College totals, but, again, he didn’t keep records. Rincon/University coach Rich Utter is at 418 and counting. Doolen won 395 at Tucson High.
Peabody’s 500 (which includes two state championships) goes this way: 47 wins at Green Fields Country Day School; 26 at the Gregory School; 248 at Salpointe Catholic; 112 at Ironwood Ridge; and now 67 at Pima College.
This is probably Peabody’s best PCC team; it is 8-3 and rolling, averaging 106 points per game. “I have four sophomores that will play Division I or Division II,” he said, identifying Deion James, Damon Dubbots, Jake Anastasi and Emillio Acedo.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Arizona’s 3-9 football season has led to inevitable defections from Rich Rodriguez’s initial group of 2017 recruits. That’s life in big money football, and it isn’t new. Twenty years ago, Tucson’s top prospect, Amphi running back Tamoni Joiner was the first to commit to Dick Tomey’s Class of 1996. A few months later, Joiner changed his mind and signed with Oregon, where he mostly sat on the bench and left school after two seasons. Joiner’s nephew, Cienega High School’s talented quarterback Jamarye Joiner, is part of RichRod’s early Class of 2018. Hmmm.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
One of the leading prospects in Arizona’s tentative Class of 2017 is Mesa Desert Ridge High School linebacker Jalen Harris, son of UA 1993 third-team AP All-America linebacker Sean Harris, a Tucson High grad. But last week Jalen decided to take an official recruiting visit to Colorado and is also considering an offer from Louisville. The UA has taken no steps to put Sean Harris into the Ring of Honor at Arizona Stadium, which is a major oversight. Sean was a first-team All-Pac-10 linebacker in 1993 and 1994 and a second-team choice in 1992. In my opinion, he was a better college football linebacker than Scooby Wright, Antonio Pierce and Lance Briggs.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
For the first time since Larry Smith became Arizona’s football coach in 1980, the Wildcats did not have a formal, full-team, year-end banquet. Instead, the UA invited seniors-only to an abbreviated get together last Sunday, with no video highlights, no formal attire, no athletic director and no school president, as was the case a year earlier. Not even all of the UA assistant coaches attended the banquet, which had become a tradition over 35 years. When you finish in last place, it sometimes becomes an every-man-for-himself existence.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Brent Brennan’s selection as head football coach at San Jose State has deep UA ties. After serving on the UA staff in 2000, Brennan followed UA defensive coordinator Rich Ellerson to Cal Poly, where Ellerson was the new head coach. Brennan served four years under Ellerson, then became part of Tomey’s San Jose State coaching staff for five seasons. It’s not likely Brennan will hire his younger brother, ex-UA receiver Brad Brennan at SJSU; Brad, was on the Oregon State staff with Brent in 2014, but has since worked for a software firm in San Francisco.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Grand Canyon makes its first appearance at McKale Center since 1980 when it faces the Wildcats on Wednesday night, a dismal 9 p.m. start. The Antelopes got a lot of mileage for playing Louisville close (79-70 loss) and for averaging 6,982 per game in their spiffy new arena. (By comparison, ASU is averaging 5,990 at home this year.) But GCU hasn’t been a ready-for-prime-time team outside of Phoenix; it has lost to SIU-Edwardsville this year. GCU’s connection to Tucson is assistant coach Chris Crevelone, a CDO grad who coached at Ironwood Ridge, and served as director of the Lute Olson Camps from 2002-07 and also worked Sean Miller’s camp in 2009, and coordinated summer camps for Richard Jefferson and Luke Walton for a few years.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Former Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood, 71, continues to spend most of his time in Las Vegas and remains active as a consultant for college athletic programs, and for the burgeoning sports scene in Las Vegas. Last week, Livengood was a featured speaker at the Learfield and Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal conference on Intercollegiate Athletics in New York. Livengood spoke on crisis management: proactive steps for mitigating risk, including how to prevent misconduct; social media education and developing a crisis communications plan. That’s about half of being an AD in the 21st century. Livengood’s strength at Arizona was finance and balancing the budget. Crisis management? He essentially lost his job because he feuded with Olson.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Tucson Athlete of the Week: Ironwood Ridge High grad Brett Miller of Yoichi Tomita’s Tucson Gymnastics World won the 2017 Maccabiah Games Trials in Norman, Oklahoma. Miller won the All-Around Senior Division title and will represent Team USA in Israel in July 2017.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Tucson’s top prep recruiting commitment of the week: Catalina Foothills junior pitcher Nicole Conway accepted a scholarship from Yale in the Class of 2018. Conway was superb last spring, leading the Falcons to the state title with a 23-6 pitching record and a batting average of .430 with 15 extra-base hits. “She had a bunch of offers,” her father, Kevin Conway said, “but couldn’t pass on such an amazing school.”
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl, in its second year, engineered a significant coup in getting a 9-3 team, Air Force, for the Dec. 30 game at Arizona Stadium. Better yet, it didn’t get a woe-is-me reaction from Air Force, whose fans had probably never heard of the Arizona Bowl. Falcons coach Troy Calhoun said: “We absolutely love it. That’s who we are. You think of the soul, the fabric, everything we’re made of … those (from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base) are our real teammates. It’s so darn cool. We’re elated.” If that’s not the sports quote of the week, what is?
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Stanley Johnson was assigned to the NBA’s D League Grand Rapids team on Saturday. The 2014-15 Arizona freshman standout has struggled mightily in his second NBA season. He was suspended Nov. 25 for breaking team rules and had scored only four points in Detroit’s last eight games. He averaged 23 minutes as a rookie and 12 this season, including three did-not-plays since Nov. 19.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The radio analyst for Arizona’s Saturday game at Missouri was Scott Thompson, part of Lute Olson’s first Arizona coaching staff and a key part of Olson’s 1986 World Championship staff. Thompson was then head coach at Rice, Wichita State and Cornell before returning to Tucson for nine years as a fundraiser for the UMC Cancer Center. He is now a fundraiser at the University of Florida.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Tucsonan Gene Arneson died last week. He was 95. He was the patriarch of one of the great football families in Tucson history. Gene’s three sons, Mark, Jim and Tom, were All-State football players at Palo Verde High School; all played for Arizona. Mark and Jim were All-WAC linebackers and played in the NFL. Tom did not letter at Arizona.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Arizona poached San Jose State assistant football coach Donté Williams a year ago, almost doubling his salary to $215,000. Last week, the food chain of college football benefited Williams again; Nebraska poached him from Arizona’s staff, almost doubling his salary to nearly $400,000.
Good for Williams, who is an able recruiter and communicator. It’s a good indicator for career success. In the last 30 years, five UA football coaches bailed out after one Tucson season; all have done well.
In 1987, linebackers coach Rich Smith left for the NFL’s Houston Oilers. He is still in the NFL, at Denver, his eighth NFL team. In 1994, secondary coach Ted Williams departed for the Philadelphia Eagles. He coached 20 seasons for the Eagles. In 2001, running backs coach Bobby Kennedy left for a spot at Washington. He is now the receivers coach at Iowa.
In 2005, Mike Stoops lost tight ends/special teams coach Josh Heupel after one year, when Heupel returned to his alma mater, Oklahoma. He is now an offensive coordinator earning $700,000 a year at Missouri. And in 2012, RichRod lost defensive backs coach Tony Gibson, who took a similar job at West Virginia. Gibson has since been promoted to defensive coordinator and earns $750,000 annually.
All is fair in love, war and assistant coaching, just as it was when RichRod bolted from an assistant’s job at Tulane for a higher paying job at Clemson in 1999.
- Greg Hansen
The first month of college basketball has done what it always does: It identifies a team’s weaknesses.
Butler found Twiggy-thin Arizona to be susceptible to foul trouble. Gonzaga discovered that when closely guarded, Arizona couldn’t hit the broadside of a 3-point shot (the Wildcats were 1 for 8).
Already, 344 of the 351 Division I teams have lost.
It works both ways.
On Saturday, Missouri did what you expected Missouri to do: the Tigers, ranked No. 302 of 351 Division I teams with an average shooting percentage of 41 percent, shot 32 percent against Arizona.
Game over.
Foul trouble for Lauri Markkanen? No problem.
Seven scholarship players available? Not a factor.
Missouri was so unsettled it strayed from strength and used three defenses. That rarely works, violating one of the rules of basketball coaching: Do what you do best. Eventually, all three Mizzou defenses broke down. So it was Saturday when Arizona swished 13 3-pointers.
Missouri wasn’t good enough to exploit Arizona’s flaws.
The seven undefeated Division I teams are likely to get to Christmas Day without a loss because none figure to be sufficiently challenged until they begin conference play.
The revelation of the first month has been 8-0 Baylor, which beat Oregon, Michigan State, Louisville and Xavier.
Creighton and Villanova, both 10-0, are apt to be 13-0 when the two collide on New Year’s Eve.
Gonzaga (10-0) seems sure to be 22-0 when it visits BYU in early February. South Carolina (8-0) could be the fraud among the seven unbeatens.
The most enticing twosome is UCLA and USC, both unscathed, both with some muscle-growing victories: the Bruins at Kentucky and the Trojans at Texas A&M.
When USC and UCLA open the Pac-12 season later this month in Oregon, it’s likely both will still be perfect. USC plays Pepperdine, Troy, Cornell and Missouri State before opening at Oregon State. The Bruins meet UC Santa Barbara, Western Michigan and face Ohio State in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Either way, the focus of Pac-12 hoops has shifted from Arizona and Oregon to Los Angeles. It is a refreshing change. But if Allonzo Trier and Parker Jackson-Cartwright return to Arizona’s lineup by the time the Wildcats visit Los Angeles January 19-21, those losses to Butler and Gonzaga — and a possible setback on Saturday at Texas A&M — will be long forgotten.
In college basketball, all of the big games await.
- Greg Hansen
Bit by bit, since Brian Peabody began his head basketball coaching career in 1990, he has gained on the enduring legends of Tucson men’s basketball coaching: Bud Doolen of Tucson High; George Genung of Amphi; Norm Patton of Marana High School and Pima College; Joe Acker of Marana and Peabody’s mentor, Dick McConnell of Sahuaro.
Finally, with a victory over Eastern Arizona College on Wednesday, Peabody hit No. 500.
Peabody, who played for McConnell at Sahuaro and was a Cougar assistant for eight years, has a long way to go if he wants to surpass McConnell’s 774 career victories, but hitting 500 puts him in rare company.
Acker probably won 500 or more in 32 years at Marana, but as with Genung at Amphi, didn’t keep count year to year. “I don’t even know my record,” Genung told me after retiring from 31 years at Amphi.
Patton surely exceeded 500 if you count his Marana, PCC and Central Arizona College totals, but, again, he didn’t keep records. Rincon/University coach Rich Utter is at 418 and counting. Doolen won 395 at Tucson High.
Peabody’s 500 (which includes two state championships) goes this way: 47 wins at Green Fields Country Day School; 26 at the Gregory School; 248 at Salpointe Catholic; 112 at Ironwood Ridge; and now 67 at Pima College.
This is probably Peabody’s best PCC team; it is 8-3 and rolling, averaging 106 points per game. “I have four sophomores that will play Division I or Division II,” he said, identifying Deion James, Damon Dubbots, Jake Anastasi and Emillio Acedo.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona’s 3-9 football season has led to inevitable defections from Rich Rodriguez’s initial group of 2017 recruits. That’s life in big money football, and it isn’t new. Twenty years ago, Tucson’s top prospect, Amphi running back Tamoni Joiner was the first to commit to Dick Tomey’s Class of 1996. A few months later, Joiner changed his mind and signed with Oregon, where he mostly sat on the bench and left school after two seasons. Joiner’s nephew, Cienega High School’s talented quarterback Jamarye Joiner, is part of RichRod’s early Class of 2018. Hmmm.
- Greg Hansen
One of the leading prospects in Arizona’s tentative Class of 2017 is Mesa Desert Ridge High School linebacker Jalen Harris, son of UA 1993 third-team AP All-America linebacker Sean Harris, a Tucson High grad. But last week Jalen decided to take an official recruiting visit to Colorado and is also considering an offer from Louisville. The UA has taken no steps to put Sean Harris into the Ring of Honor at Arizona Stadium, which is a major oversight. Sean was a first-team All-Pac-10 linebacker in 1993 and 1994 and a second-team choice in 1992. In my opinion, he was a better college football linebacker than Scooby Wright, Antonio Pierce and Lance Briggs.
- Greg Hansen
For the first time since Larry Smith became Arizona’s football coach in 1980, the Wildcats did not have a formal, full-team, year-end banquet. Instead, the UA invited seniors-only to an abbreviated get together last Sunday, with no video highlights, no formal attire, no athletic director and no school president, as was the case a year earlier. Not even all of the UA assistant coaches attended the banquet, which had become a tradition over 35 years. When you finish in last place, it sometimes becomes an every-man-for-himself existence.
- Greg Hansen
Brent Brennan’s selection as head football coach at San Jose State has deep UA ties. After serving on the UA staff in 2000, Brennan followed UA defensive coordinator Rich Ellerson to Cal Poly, where Ellerson was the new head coach. Brennan served four years under Ellerson, then became part of Tomey’s San Jose State coaching staff for five seasons. It’s not likely Brennan will hire his younger brother, ex-UA receiver Brad Brennan at SJSU; Brad, was on the Oregon State staff with Brent in 2014, but has since worked for a software firm in San Francisco.
- Greg Hansen
Grand Canyon makes its first appearance at McKale Center since 1980 when it faces the Wildcats on Wednesday night, a dismal 9 p.m. start. The Antelopes got a lot of mileage for playing Louisville close (79-70 loss) and for averaging 6,982 per game in their spiffy new arena. (By comparison, ASU is averaging 5,990 at home this year.) But GCU hasn’t been a ready-for-prime-time team outside of Phoenix; it has lost to SIU-Edwardsville this year. GCU’s connection to Tucson is assistant coach Chris Crevelone, a CDO grad who coached at Ironwood Ridge, and served as director of the Lute Olson Camps from 2002-07 and also worked Sean Miller’s camp in 2009, and coordinated summer camps for Richard Jefferson and Luke Walton for a few years.
- Greg Hansen
Former Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood, 71, continues to spend most of his time in Las Vegas and remains active as a consultant for college athletic programs, and for the burgeoning sports scene in Las Vegas. Last week, Livengood was a featured speaker at the Learfield and Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal conference on Intercollegiate Athletics in New York. Livengood spoke on crisis management: proactive steps for mitigating risk, including how to prevent misconduct; social media education and developing a crisis communications plan. That’s about half of being an AD in the 21st century. Livengood’s strength at Arizona was finance and balancing the budget. Crisis management? He essentially lost his job because he feuded with Olson.
- Greg Hansen
Tucson Athlete of the Week: Ironwood Ridge High grad Brett Miller of Yoichi Tomita’s Tucson Gymnastics World won the 2017 Maccabiah Games Trials in Norman, Oklahoma. Miller won the All-Around Senior Division title and will represent Team USA in Israel in July 2017.
- Greg Hansen
Tucson’s top prep recruiting commitment of the week: Catalina Foothills junior pitcher Nicole Conway accepted a scholarship from Yale in the Class of 2018. Conway was superb last spring, leading the Falcons to the state title with a 23-6 pitching record and a batting average of .430 with 15 extra-base hits. “She had a bunch of offers,” her father, Kevin Conway said, “but couldn’t pass on such an amazing school.”
- Greg Hansen
The Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl, in its second year, engineered a significant coup in getting a 9-3 team, Air Force, for the Dec. 30 game at Arizona Stadium. Better yet, it didn’t get a woe-is-me reaction from Air Force, whose fans had probably never heard of the Arizona Bowl. Falcons coach Troy Calhoun said: “We absolutely love it. That’s who we are. You think of the soul, the fabric, everything we’re made of … those (from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base) are our real teammates. It’s so darn cool. We’re elated.” If that’s not the sports quote of the week, what is?
- Greg Hansen
Stanley Johnson was assigned to the NBA’s D League Grand Rapids team on Saturday. The 2014-15 Arizona freshman standout has struggled mightily in his second NBA season. He was suspended Nov. 25 for breaking team rules and had scored only four points in Detroit’s last eight games. He averaged 23 minutes as a rookie and 12 this season, including three did-not-plays since Nov. 19.
- Greg Hansen
The radio analyst for Arizona’s Saturday game at Missouri was Scott Thompson, part of Lute Olson’s first Arizona coaching staff and a key part of Olson’s 1986 World Championship staff. Thompson was then head coach at Rice, Wichita State and Cornell before returning to Tucson for nine years as a fundraiser for the UMC Cancer Center. He is now a fundraiser at the University of Florida.
- Greg Hansen
Tucsonan Gene Arneson died last week. He was 95. He was the patriarch of one of the great football families in Tucson history. Gene’s three sons, Mark, Jim and Tom, were All-State football players at Palo Verde High School; all played for Arizona. Mark and Jim were All-WAC linebackers and played in the NFL. Tom did not letter at Arizona.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona poached San Jose State assistant football coach Donté Williams a year ago, almost doubling his salary to $215,000. Last week, the food chain of college football benefited Williams again; Nebraska poached him from Arizona’s staff, almost doubling his salary to nearly $400,000.
Good for Williams, who is an able recruiter and communicator. It’s a good indicator for career success. In the last 30 years, five UA football coaches bailed out after one Tucson season; all have done well.
In 1987, linebackers coach Rich Smith left for the NFL’s Houston Oilers. He is still in the NFL, at Denver, his eighth NFL team. In 1994, secondary coach Ted Williams departed for the Philadelphia Eagles. He coached 20 seasons for the Eagles. In 2001, running backs coach Bobby Kennedy left for a spot at Washington. He is now the receivers coach at Iowa.
In 2005, Mike Stoops lost tight ends/special teams coach Josh Heupel after one year, when Heupel returned to his alma mater, Oklahoma. He is now an offensive coordinator earning $700,000 a year at Missouri. And in 2012, RichRod lost defensive backs coach Tony Gibson, who took a similar job at West Virginia. Gibson has since been promoted to defensive coordinator and earns $750,000 annually.
All is fair in love, war and assistant coaching, just as it was when RichRod bolted from an assistant’s job at Tulane for a higher paying job at Clemson in 1999.
Most Popular
-
Cool-headed Arizona Wildcats defy history, beat Purdue 79-64 to reach Final Four
-
Report: Sheriff Nanos improperly used position, resources in political foe's suspension
-
As water lifeline evaporates, Arizona faces a cultural change over water use -
Homes in this Tucson-area community to start at $2 million
-
Arizona lawmaker seeks to jump-start I-11 construction
