Ex-Arizona Wildcat Adama Bal makes NBA debut | Greg Hansen

– Now that ex-Wildcat basketball player Paulius Murauskas has transferred from Saint Mary's to Arizona State, he would be the second ex-Wildcat to play against his former school. The first was Terrell Brown Jr., who played for Arizona in Sean Miller’s final season, 2020-21, and transferred to Washington. Brown was terrific against his ex-UA teammates, scoring 29 and 28 points in two games, although Tommy Lloyd’s first UA team beat Washington twice, 95-79 and 92-68.

– Nicole Conway pitched Catalina Foothills to the 2016 state softball championship and was named the state's Softball Player of the Year by also hitting .444. She had 58 victories in her CFHS career, elevating her game after working for years with former Arizona All-American pitcher Alicia Hollowell Dunn. But last week Conway may have surpassed her softball feats of a decade ago. After graduating from Yale, Conway began training to qualify for the Boston Marathon. And she did. On April 20, Conway ran the Boston Marathon in 3 hours and 40 seconds. Wow. Well done. Conway started 44 games at Yale, winning 17.

– Pima College basketball standout Mason Hunt, who averaged a team-high 18.2 points for the 35-1 Aztecs this season, will play for ex-Arizona All-American Mike Bibby next year. Hunt has signed with Sacramento State. Bibby went 10-21 in his rookie season as a college head coach. Hunt is from Prescott.

– Last week, I wrote that Sahuaro point guard Cisco Llamas finished fourth in Tucson history with 2,131 career points. That total is for big schools, 4A to 6A. The two most productive small school, 1A to 3A, basketball scorers in Tucson history are Tyson Dobbins, who had 2,568 points at Desert Christian, and the Gregory School's Nick Rosquist, who scored 2,142 points in high school before playing at Pima College.

– Tucson's golf industry has changed dramatically the last generation or two. From the 1970s to 2010, the Tucson City Amateur was a hotly contested showdown between well-known veteran Tucson golfers such as Armen Dirtadian, Larry Pagel, David McDaniel, Dan Meyers, Jeff Kern and men in their 20s and 30s, most with college golfing experience. But last week, 15-year-old Hudson Parker of Mica Mountain High School shot 65-67-76 to win the City championship. A year earlier, Catalina Foothills sophomore John Matheny won the City title. The young guns have arrived.

– Pima College's Jiselle Nunez, a sophomore from Tucson High, hit three home runs in a victory over Scottsdale Community College on Tuesday as the No. 7 Aztecs, 41-6, continued a roll toward a possible NJCAA championship run. What's ironic is that Nunez set the PCC record for three homers in a game last year against Mesa, capping a remarkable season in which she hit 22 home runs and had 99 RBIs. Nunez has improved greatly under Pima coach Rebekah Quiroz; As a senior at Tucson High in 2024, Nunez hit just four home runs.