Hansen's Sunday Notebook: ASU AD wants life in hoops

ASU AD's goal: Inject some life into hoops program

When 12th-seeded Miami (Ohio) eliminated Arizona from the 1995 NCAA tournament, I sat in the media center and listened as Herb Sendek did his best NOT to explain how the RedHawks stunned the Wildcats.

I remember asking colleagues if they had ever listened to a more uninspiring coach in an interview setting. No matter what was asked, Sendek, then 32, wouldn’t bite. Wouldn’t smile. Wouldn’t change expressions.

Bland is one thing. Sendek took it to a new level.

The old joke used to be that Sendek had a “charisma bypass.” Couldn’t argue with that.

There’s no question that beating Arizona in 1995 got Sendek hired at North Carolina State in 1996. It was Miami’s only NCAA victory in Sendek’s three short seasons.

After 10 uninspiring seasons at North Carolina State, in which his “best” record was 23-11, Sendek was hired by Arizona State.

You’ve got to know what you’re paying for, and that was ASU’s error. The same man who put his audience to sleep in 1995 put the Sun Devils basketball audience into a similar slumber the last nine seasons.

College basketball is the entertainment business. If your identity is a curtain behind which a few knuckleheads dress up in silly costumes, you’ve got a problem.

That’s why it was predictable that second-year ASU athletic director Ray Anderson, formerly a vice president of business operations in the NFL, would inevitably change his basketball program’s personality.

Anderson called it “fan affinity advancement.” That’s the new sports phrase of the year. It means: Our fans didn’t care.

Sendek will make a terrific No. 2 assistant coach somewhere. UCLA should hire him today. Washington should get Sendek on the phone right now.

Anderson has become the leader ASU athletics has sought for 20 years. He dropped Nike and doubled his money with Adidas. He was part of a $10 million-a-year student fee declaration. He fired baseball, gymnastics and wrestling coaches. He fired his in-house marketing firm. He began a $250 million makeover of Sun Devil Stadium. He surrounded himself with new-era lieutenants who made their mark in the NFL.

Sendek couldn’t have possibly survived.

The good news to Sun Devil fans is that change is good. The potential bad news is that there is probably not a sexy, home run basketball coach willing/available to replace Sendek.

Steve Lavin? Don’t make me laugh. His “best” record as UCLA coach was 24-8. He never took advantage of UCLA’s heft in the Southern California recruiting market. Duke assistant Jeff Capel? He wouldn’t move the needle in any market outside North Carolina.

Anderson has degrees from Harvard and Stanford so I assume he wouldn’t have fired Sendek without first being confident he could hire someone better than Lavin and Capel.

A year ago, he could’ve hired Montana’s Wayne Tinkle, an obvious candidate, but Oregon State got there first.

Josh Pastner? That would’ve been like Arizona hiring one of Frank Kush’s assistants in the 1970s. There’s way too much bad blood; half of the fan base would never buy it.

I like Anderson’s chances to win this hiring process. He’s on a Greg Byrne-type trajectory. Hiring the right basketball coach will make him a saint in Tempe and he knows that better than anyone.

Crawford was a baseball legend

Here’s a little-known truth about Jim Crawford, who coached St. David High School to 15 state baseball championships between 1965 and 2002: He turned down a chance to coach at his alma mater, Arizona State, when the Sun Devils were probably the No. 1 baseball program in America.

But Crawford chose to live in Benson, near his hometown of (tiny) Pomerene and “commute” to St. David, where he was a father figure and baseball coach in five decades.

When ASU was a powerhouse in the ’60s, Bobby Winkles, the head coach, asked Crawford if he would consider moving to Tempe and being his assistant coach. Winkles knew what those in St. David knew. Crawford was one of a kind.

In 2001, Crawford received the highest award in high school coaching. He was named national Coach of the Year by the National Federation of State High School Associations. One person gets that award every year. One person in America. In 2001, it was Jim Crawford.

The son of a Bisbee miner died last week. Crawford was 85. He left a legacy for high school coaching in Southern Arizona that will last forever.

Cordes' latest title puts him in elite company

When Kevin Cordes won his fourth consecutive NCAA championship in the 100-yard breast stroke Friday night, it gave him six individual national titles at Arizona. More than that, it put him in some elite company with Olympic gold medalists Brendan Hansen of Texas and Steve Lundquist of SMU. They are the only other swimmers to win four NCAA titles in the 100breast stroke. Lundquist won two gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (100 breast stroke, 400 medley relay) and Hansen earned a bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics (and a gold in a relay). Cordes won’t catch the top swimmer in UA history, Ryk Neethling, who won nine NCAA individual championships, but he has surpassed multiple Arizona NCAA winners George DiCarlo, Simon Burnett and Albert Subirats. 

Tucsonan Scofield officiating in NCAA tourney 

Tucsonan Bob Scofield, who has officiated in eight NCAA basketball tournaments, worked Friday’s Notre Dame-Stanford women’s Sweet 16 game in Oklahoma City. A week earlier, he called two games in the Greensboro, N.C., pod. Based on merit and season-long evaluations, Scofield reached the Pac-12 tournament semifinals three weeks ago in Seattle. 

Stoudamire honored with bobblehead

Friday night was Damon Stoudamire bobblehead night at the Raptors-Lakers game in Toronto. Stoudamire, who was the NBA Rookie of the Year for Toronto in 1996, has been part of the franchise’s 20-year anniversary celebration. Small-world: When Stoudamire showed up at Staples Center for Thursday’s Sweet 16 against Xavier, he sat on the same bench as North Carolina assistant coach Hubert Davis, who was his teammate at Toronto in 1997. Stoudamire led that team with a career-high 20.2 scoring average. 

Ex-Cat Gordon improves FTs, but struggling to get minutes

In his NBA rookie season, Aaron Gordon is struggling for minutes. He averages just 15.1 minutes for a really bad (22-52) Orlando Magic team. But Gordon has made the best of his time. The Pac-12’s 2014 Freshman of the Year has impressively improved his dreadful 42.2 college foul-shooting percentage to 71.2 in the NBA. That’s almost unprecedented. Here’s why Gordon, and others, leave college basketball after one season: His average weekly paycheck is $76,769. 

Ex-Cat Simon, father going strong 

Miles Simon had a notable ESPN presence at the NCAA regionals in Los Angeles. His father, Walt Simon, is also going strong. Walt Simon, 74, played on Utah’s 1966 Final Four team. He is now in his fifth year as an assistant coach at NAIA Vanguard University, helping the VUSC women’s basketball team reach the NAIA national tournament last week in Independence, Missouri. 

16 Tucsonans have danced 

I wrote last week that 13 basketball players from Tucson high schools had participated in the NCAA tournament in the Pac-10/12 era. My research was a little shy. The new number is 16. I omitted three: CDO grad Anthony Norwood Lever played for Oregon’s Elite Eight team of 2002; Tucson High’s Sama Taku started for Pacific’s 2013 NCAA team; and Salpointe Catholic’s Brian Smith played for New Mexico’s 1999 NCAA team. Smith is now the director of the Colangelo School of Business at Grand Canyon University.  

CDO's Nettling makes exceptional comeback 

In a remarkable comeback, CDO grad Sammy Nettling, one of the top softball players in Arizona in the last decade, is in the lineup for Northwestern. Nettling missed NU’s first 19 games recovering from a November surgery in which a vein in her leg was transplanted to replace a damaged vein in her right arm. She was in intensive care for a week. Nettling not only returned, but is hitting .435 in eight games and seven starts, 10 for 23. 

City golf face-lift is success so far

OB Sports, which manages the five Tucson City Golf courses, took about $150,000 off its inherited deficit in January and February, and played host to more rounds (134,440), since the fiscal year began in July, than it budgeted (129,000). That’s positive momentum for the first time in years for city golf. It will next open the long vacant shack shop between the Randolph and Dell Urich courses. The face-lift is working. 

RichRod makes impressive move 

You had to be impressed with Rich Rodriguez’s recruiting of Los Angeles Junipero Serra quarterback Khalil Tate, who committed to Arizona two weeks ago. Serra is “the” USC stronghold in Southern California. Getting its star quarterback is a coup of note. Not only do you battle USC at Serra — which produced stars Marqise Lee, Robert Woods and Adoree’ Jackson for the Trojans — but its coach, Scott Altenberg and his father, a former UCLA standout, both have long UCLA ties. 

Tucson football legend Santa Cruz receives honor 

One of the top football figures in Tucson history, Saturnino “Curly” Santa Cruz will be honored with LULAC’s presidential citation April 16 at the Doubletree Hotel. Santa Cruz played on Pueblo High’s 1961 state title team, became a playoff head coach at his alma mater in the ’80s and ’90s and helped Sunnyside High School win the 2002 state championship. 

Former Arizona star Refsnyder likely on Yanks' roster

Arizona’s 2012 College World Series MVP Robert Refsnyder will learn this week if he makes the New York Yankees’ opening day roster. The second baseman was hitting .313 in 20 spring training games through Saturday. The Yankees moved their other backup second baseman, Jose Pirela, to the outfield last week, which was the best indication Refsnyder will make the roster behind starter Stephen Drew.  

My two cents: Augie Busch's coaching star rising

When Hall of Fame swimming coach Frank Busch left Arizona four years ago, taking over the USA Swimming teams, his son, Augie Busch, hoped to be his replacement.

As an assistant, Augie helped Arizona sweep NCAA championships in 2008 in men’s and women’s swimming. But at 32, he was probably too young and unproven to take on a program of Arizona’s might.

Those days are gone. A week ago, Busch’s Virginia Cavaliers women’s team finished fifth in the NCAA championships. Arizona was 15th, its worst NCAA women’s finish in 27 years.

Busch has surrounded himself at Virginia with Arizona blood. Ex-Wildcat All-American Cory Chitwood and Sam Busch, a Salpointe grad and Augie’s brother, are his top assistant coaches.

Now, at 38, Augie Busch is one of college swimming’s hot young coaching prospects. He spent two years at Houston before being hired at Virginia, which was not anyone’s idea of a swimming power.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Augie is back on deck at Hillenbrand Aquatic Center after UA coach Rick DeMont retires. 

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