Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Locals leading Pima College into NJCAA Division II Championships

Some people inside junior college basketball were a bit surprised last week when Pima College was seeded No. 2 in the NJCAA Division II championships.

One person who wasn’t: Pima coach Brian Peabody. He voted the Aztecs as the No. 1 overall seed.

NJCAA coaches seeded Pima ahead of 29-1 Cuyahoga College of Ohio. The Aztecs are also ranked ahead of long-time power Louisburg College of North Carolina, which finished the season on a 14-0 streak.

Why? The Aztecs play in the ACCAC, which includes five Division I teams, including national powers Cochise College, Arizona Western College and Mesa College. It’s a strength-of-schedule thing.

Not that Pima College needs any help.

“I voted us No. 1 because we played 13 games against Division I teams and went 12-1,” Peabody said. “All 16 coaches got to vote for the seeding. Our only loss to a D-I school was in the final game at Arizona Western. We didn’t have our leading scorer, Keven Biggs. We deserve our spot.”

Pima (28-4) opens play in the 16-team field Tuesday at 1 p.m. Tucson time. It will play 15th seed College of Southern Maryland (19-12), surprise winner of a conference in which it finished sixth in the regular season.

The Aztecs won the region championship on the court of favored Phoenix College and completed the season averaging 102.8 points. If Pima wins Tuesday’s opener in Danville, Illinois, it will play the winner of the Richard Bland College of Virginia-Highland College of Kansas game.

The No. 1 overall seed is perennial NJCAA contender Triton College of Illinois, which is 29-4. If the seeds hold, if the Aztecs can win three games, Pima would play for the championship Saturday night .

Peabody has been resourceful, to say the least. Four Tucsonans — Biggs and Isaiah Murphy of Cienega, Abram Carrasco of Cholla and ex-Salpointe football player Robert Wilson — are part of the rotation.

Peabody spotted Wilson in an open gym tryout; the 6-foot-5-inch center/power forward initially left Salpointe to play football at Adams State in Colorado. He then returned to Tucson to play football at Pima. Now he will join the Aztecs in attempt to win the national title.

When Salpointe Catholic grad Andy Trouard won the NCAA indoor championship in the 3,000 meters last week in Texas, he had an epic finish. He out-kicked  NCAA standout runner Justyn Knight of Syracuse.

“This is a career defining moment for Andy,” NAU track coach Michael Smith said. “I’m so proud of him. No one but Andy deserves the credit on that one. Our coaches can prepare him but that execution was completely his own. He did a fantastic job of controlling the race and winning the straights. On a 200-meter banked track the tactics of passing are unique. His win was a master class in those tactics. This was a special moment in NAU track and field history.”

Trouard has been a key part of two more “special moments” at NAU. The Lumberjacks won the NCAA cross- country championships of 2016 and 2017.

“I’d take the team titles by a landslide,” Trouard, a senior, said after winning in Texas, noting how special it is to be on a six-man cross country team.

In the 3,000-meter final, Trouard took the lead from the start and held it over Syracuse’s Knight.

“I told myself a thousand times I could do it,” said Trouard. “I got in front and figured if no one passed me, I’d win.”

The NCAA isn’t likely to explain why Arizona was sent to Boise, Idaho, rather than San Diego for the NCAA Tournament. It’s rare that two No. 4 seeds – Arizona and Gonzaga in this case — play in the same regional. Or that no geographical draw, such as Arizona, wasn’t included in San Diego, the way the Zags were in Boise. It even appeared to baffle San Diego State athletic director John David Wicker, whose school played host to the San Diego bracket. “How it got slated that Arizona went to Boise and we got what we got — I’m never going to complain about having the NCAA Tournament,” Wicker told The San Diego Union-Tribune. “But I’ll be interested to hear what they were thinking.”

Arizona stopped pursuing NCAA Tournament games when Greg Byrne became athletic director. In consult with Sean Miller, Byrne decided that any year Arizona played host to first- and second-round games could possibly mean Arizona, and its fans, would have to travel a greater distance, outside the West brackets. The NCAA is scheduled through 2021; Tucson is not on the schedule. It would be encouraging if new Arizona AD Dave Heeke reconsiders; in the 12 years McKale Center has served as a host, from 1974-2011, Tucson was abuzz with tourist activity. In Boise last week, about 5,000 visitors were at Taco Bell Arena on a chilly and rainy week. Boise has essentially replaced Tucson in the Western rotation of the NCAA Tournament, playing host to four first- and second-round events since 2001.

Tucsonan Chris Rastatter is working as a referee in the NCAA Tournament for the 12th straight year. Rastatter called Thursday’s Duke-Iona game. A week ago, Rastatter worked the Mountain West Conference championship game, as well as a Pac-12 Tournament semifinal. He has officiated 76 games so far this year, which ranks fifth in the western consortium of referees. The officials who work the most games in a season are generally those in most demand for the biggest games. In the Pac-12, only Final Four refs Verne Harris (81), Randy McCall (80), Dave Hall (78) and Tony Padilla (76) have worked as many or more games than Rastatter this year.

Jim Napier was part of the original Tucson Toros (1969), the first Triple-A franchise to play in Tucson. Napier, a catcher from rural Central California, played four years with the Toros and then became a career coach/manager in the minor leagues. He made Tucson his home and retired here. He died late last month of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 79. Napier has 11 grandchildren in Tucson; two of his sons, Greg Napier and Jim Napier, are firefighters in Tucson.

Former Ironwood Ridge High School basketball player Mitch Lightfoot, who chose to attend Kansas over Arizona, hasn’t played much for the Jayhawks over two seasons. But he had a career-type game Thursday in the NCAA Tournament against Penn. Lightfoot had 11 rebounds, a career high, and scored nine points in 27 minutes, also a career high. A sophomore forward, Lightfoot is usually the second player off the bench for Kansas. He started in Saturday's second-round game against Seton Hall, adding four points and grabbing three rebounds in 14 minutes. He also blocked a shot as the Jayhawks advanced.

The UA quietly announced last week it has replaced Arizona Stadium public address announcer Jimmy Zasa, who has been working for the UA since his high school days at Canyon del Oro. Zasa will remain in his position as the baseball PA announcer at Hi Corbett Field, and for the Pac-12 Gymnastics Championships next weekend at McKale Center. The school said it has chosen to change the “game-day experience” at Arizona Stadium, and thus will try a different approach on the PA system. Zasa’s style is often loud and exaggerated, rather than just fitting into the landscape. My guess is that ticket-buyers of an older generation would rather have more of a lullaby than a heavy-metal concert over the PA system.

Marana High School football coach Andy Litten will not return for the 2018 season, and that’s a significant loss for the Tigers. In six years, Litten went 36-28, starting at the bottom, and little by little putting Marana at the same level as Southern Arizona powers Ironwood Ridge and Cienega. He was 18-6 the last two seasons, one of the top offensive coaches in the state. Litten will become offensive coordinator at Chandler’s Hamilton High School, one of the state’s mega-powers. Hamilton has won seven state titles since 2003. Litten is a hometown guy, from Marana, who played at Mountain View High School.

An open forum on the future of Pima College’s football program last week lasted two hours. Nothing was decided. It was disappointing that only about 25 people and just two high school football head coaches attended. The high school coaches, if united, could make a difference in helping to persuade PCC to continue its football program. The PCC board will make the ultimate decision. Optimistic? Probably not. Finances, facilities and risk-management are potential problems. It is compounded by the diminished Western States Football League, that will have just two in-state opponents — Arizona Western and Eastern Arizona — for Pima after the 2018 season.

Terrell Stoglin, who pushed Santa Rita to the 2010 state basketball championship and then led the ACC in scoring while at Maryland, is on the move again. He signed last week with Qatar Al Rayyan for the summer league. Since leaving Maryland, Stoglin has played in France (Cholet Basket), Greece (Ilysiakos), Italy (Openjobmetis), Poland (Stelmet Enea), Turkey (Adanaspor) and Ukraine (Mariupol). He averaged 41.1 points in China last summer. Stoglin is 26.

Ironwood Ridge grad Dylan Kaiser returned to Tucson last week to play in the Tucson Invitational Games at the Kino Sports Complex, one of scores of out-of-state baseball teams from colder climates to hold “spring training” in Tucson. Kaiser was terrific. Playing for Cornell College of Iowa, Kaiser went 7 for 10 with six RBIs.

Since retiring from the NBA in 2012, former Arizona Final Four guard Gilbert Arenas has enjoyed the life of a man who was paid $141 million over his NBA career, which included three All-Star Games. Now 36, Arenas is back, sort of. He is the talk-show host on YouTube’s “Out of Bounds,” in which he is a bit like Stephen A. Smith without the biting edge. Arenas talks on every conceivable sports topic: Gronk, LaVar Ball, and most of the hot topics in sports. Arenas’ show — “The World’s Most Dangerous Sports Show” — is broadcast Monday through Friday for about 40 minutes per day.

The Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl has awarded more than $50,000 to local charities since New Mexico State’s classic come-from-behind victory over Utah State at Arizona Stadium. Tucson attorney Ali Farhang, co-founder of the bowl game, said that the bowl game donated $24,000 to TUSD and $24,000 to the Amphitheater Unified School District recently, and another $10,000 to the Conquistadores for their charitable endeavors. ESPN.com had more than 2.6 million hits on the Arizona Bowl game.

As one of the Pac-12’s most valuable media rights partners, Fox Sports would do well to make more of a commitment to the Pac-12 basketball tournament. The league again allowed a semifinal game to be played on the Pac-12 Networks, Arizona vs. UCLA, restricting it to a limited audience. If Fox Sports is all-in on the Pac-12, it should televise the Friday doubleheader rather than just blow off the opening semifinal game.

Rather than rush into spring training, first-year UA football coach Kevin Sumlin waited two months.

He hired a coaching staff and a support staff. He established a recruiting operation. He gave time for all of those newly hired to relocate to Tucson.

Sumlin also spent considerable time evaluating the returning roster. Although he has yet to speak publicly about personnel, he has surely discovered that it isn’t a thin squadron of leftovers from the Rich Rodriguez days.

When spring camp begins Monday, Sumlin will begin to build around junior quarterback Khalil Tate by trying to identify offensive and defensive linemen who can play winning football. Most of the rest of the roster is of Pac-12 quality.

This shouldn’t be a bridge year for UA football. It projects as one in which attendance at Arizona Stadium returns to 50,000 or more per game, and the Wildcats contend for the Pac-12 South championship.