Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Fans critical of Sean Miller's tournament performance doubted Lute, too
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
In the first 10 years of his Arizona career, before the NCAA placed charter jets on standby to whisk the losers home 90 minutes after an exit loss, Lute Olson would invite the newspaper guys to his hotel suite a day after the game.
Olson would put the season in context, good or bad, and invariably let off some steam.
Once, after losing a first-round game to East Tennessee State in Atlanta, he bellowed that those questioning his coaching ability should first “show me their résumé.”
A year later, after another first-round loss, to Santa Clara, Olson was skewered on a Tucson sports-talk radio program so roundly that assistant coach Jim Rosborough encouraged Olson to phone in and defend himself.
He defiantly remained silent. Did not UA fans appreciate six Pac-10 championships in eight years, two seasons ranked No. 1, a Final Four appearance and a collection of victories over Duke, Syracuse, North Carolina and Michigan?
His record would speak. Olson would not apologize.
A year later, Arizona went to another Final Four. Olson ceased the post-NCAA Tournament meetings in his suite. Thereafter, the critics seemed to get it: Getting through the minefield of March would not always lead to a happy ending.
Now, 20 years later, the process is repeating. Arizona lost in the Sweet 16 and the chorus of unhappy fans swelled.
Sean Miller is a micromanager, said one. Miller doesn’t know how to beat a zone defense, said another. March has become Arizona’s personal Groundhog Day, with one deflating exit after another.
Some suggest Miller should hire better assistant coaches. Change his offense. Learn how to manage time-outs.
Fans are so unhappy that there won’t be an empty seat when the Wildcats stage their Red and Blue Scrimmage in October.
Miller took the blame late Thursday night in San Jose. “It’s on me,” he said. That’s enough. Move on. Miller is 48. When Olson was 48, Arizona fired head coach Fred Snowden and had difficulty filling 5,000 seats at McKale Center.
Miller’s best basketball is surely ahead, in 2018 and 2021 and down the line.
I thought the best perspective of Arizona’s basketball season came not from Miller’s post-game concession, but by watching his father, John Miller, during the loss to Xavier.
John Miller is 73. He coached four state championship teams in Pennsylvania high school basketball, won more than 600 games, and has since watched his sons, Sean and Archie — the younger Miller was named Indiana’s new head coach on Saturday — win a combined 479 college games and reach a cumulative 14 NCAA tournaments.
He knows how it goes.
John Miller sat with Archie three rows behind Arizona’s bench at the SAP Center. I couldn’t help but watch their reaction as the game seemed to be won, then lost.
Neither changed expression. John Miller didn’t pump a fist, yell at the refs or grimace in horror. He folded his arms across his chest, remained in his seat and took it in.
There will be another season. Arizona has never recruited at a higher level than now, even in the Olson years. There is not a crack in the foundation of UA basketball.
Losing to Xavier was neither a calamity nor a cue to wonder if Sean Miller has lost it. It was one bad night in the gym after months of good ones.
Only a handful of Tucson athletes have become notable Arizona State Sun Devils, none more than Tucson High and UA grad Billy Mann, who died last week in Phoenix at 93. For 15 years ASU’s golf coach, and also a basketball assistant coach under Ned Wulk, Mann graduated from Tucson High in 1943 and earned letters in football, basketball and baseball. He played a season of football at Arizona before being drafted into the Army, where he awarded bronze star for action with the 7th Infantry (tank corps).
After the war, Mann played four seasons of basketball for coach Fred Enke and was an infielder on the baseball team. From 1946-49, Mann played basketball for Arizona as it won 80 games and four straight Border Conference titles and played in the first postseason game in school history. He was a second-team All-Border Conference pick in 1948.
After graduating from Arizona, he coached basketball at two Phoenix high schools, then replaced former Wildcats teammate and future UA head basketball coach Bruce Larson as head coach at Weber State in 1959.
The only other Tucsonan/Arizona Wildcat standout who in later years became a Sun Devils coach was All-America tennis player Bill Lenoir of Tucson High.
Mann is not yet a member of the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame, a notable oversight. That should be corrected soon.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One day last April, after Salpointe Catholic guard Cameron Miller played in a weekend AAU showcase, he was offered seven scholarships in one day.
Division II and Division III schools from Maine, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana offered. All sorts of schools, including Portland State, Dixie State, Santa Clara, Denver and MIT called.
Sean Miller’s son was a hot property not because of his bloodlines, but because of his basketball IQ and steely approach to the game. A few weeks ago, Miller helped Salpointe reach the Class 4A state championship game.
It now seems unlikely he’ll sign with some faraway Division II school. Instead, his father last week told radio host Jim Rome that Cameron is likely to join the Arizona organization, either as a walk-on or in another role on the staff.
The Wildcats can always use another winner.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Before Central Michigan AD Dave Heeke takes office at Arizona next week, he’ll transition from one top softball program to another. The Chippewas have gone 17-1 in a recent streak, through Friday, and are favorites to win the Mid-American Conference. CMU’s leading player is probably Tucsonan Allison Curtis, who played at Salpointe. Curtis was an All-MAC outfielder as a freshman and was batting .397 through Friday’s games.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Sahuaro High grad Alex Verdugo hit .357 for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, going 5 for 14 as a starting center fielder, batting second in Mexico’s lineup. Back in the L.A. Dodgers’ spring training camp, Verdugo is hitting .231 in nine games and is expected to start the season at the Dodgers’ Triple-A club in Oklahoma City.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Tucson basketball referee Bob Scofield advanced to the Sweet 16, working Friday’s Washington-Mississippi State women’s game. Scofield mostly works Pac-12 games in the regular season, and missed two weeks last month with a calf injury. This is his eighth straight Sweet 16 and 19th NCAA Tournament. One of his colleagues, ex-UA basketball player Brenda Pantoja, also advanced to the women’s Sweet 16, calling Friday’s Baylor-Louisville game. NCAA basketball referees advance on a merit system, as evaluated by the NCAA game to game.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Salpointe and Pima College grad Ryan Ramsower has started seven games for Washington State’s baseball team, hitting .207. Ramsower, a second baseman, will face Arizona when the Wildcats play at WSU April 7-9.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The Pima College men’s basketball season ended with 22 victories, including one in the NJCAA Division II national finals in Illinois last week. It was the most victories in a season since 1991. Brian Peabody’s team could be even better next year. He has recruited well. But one of the better stories of PCC’s Region I championship team was the play of Tucson High grad Keegan Biggers at the NJCAAs. In the opening victory over Waubonsee College, Biggers came off the bench to score on two offensive rebound putbacks, helping the Aztecs lead 35-24. Biggers finished with four points and eight rebounds in just seven minutes. After the game, as Peabody commended his club, he didn’t immediately see Biggers, who was standing behind Peabody. “I thought he might be out signing autographs,” said Peabody. “We couldn’t have won without him.”
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The UA athletic administration acted quickly in attempt to lend more visibility to Rich Rodriguez’s spring football camp. Initially, fans were invited only to an early-March, Thursday-night scrimmage. Crickets. Since then, the school developed a “Spring Showcase Series,” which continues with a Friday scrimmage at 6 p.m., and a meet-and-greet day next month.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Ex-NFL receiver Mike Thomas, who caught more passes than anyone in Arizona history, was arrested in Sandy Springs, Georgia, last week after he allegedly attacked his fiancée in a home in which a child’s birthday party was taking place downstairs. According to an Atlanta TV station, the 29-year-old Thomas was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony and third-degree child abuse.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The Rillito Race Track posted its highest betting handle ever, a record $1.7 million, in the six-week meet that ended a week ago. The total includes simulcast betting at parlors worldwide. According to Jaye Wells, president of the Rillito Park Foundation, a five-year lease extension from the county, helped to secure OTB contracts with other gambling sites around the world.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona senior pitcher Danielle O’Toole’s no-hitter Friday night against No. 6 Washington was the 90th in UA history. How good is that? Arizona State’s pitchers have 35 no-hitters in history and Washington has 34. The Wildcats will play at doubleheader against Grand Canyon on Wednesday afternoon-evening at Hillenbrand Stadium and it’ll be old home week for four Antelopes, including assistant coach Kelsey Rodriguez, who in 2014 as a Wildcat standout was the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The Grand Canyon starting lineup includes Ironwood Ridge grad Loriann Olson, who is hitting .347, and CDO’s Niki Gonzalez, who is hitting .324 for a 25-9 team that is favored to win the WAC title.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Sabino High sophomore Maddie Mariani, who has committed to compete for Michigan as a college gymnast, is on an impressive streak. She won the Arizona State championships last week in Phoenix, not only winning the all-around championship, her fifth in succession, but also won the vault, beam and floor exercise competitions. Over a six-week period, Mariani also won the Pikes Peak Challenge in Colorado, the Valley of the Sun meet in Scottsdale and the Long Beach Open.
I have been as guilty as anyone in labeling Xavier as something less than an elite basketball school, but much like Wichita State, I now understand that the Musketeers and Shockers are Top 25 programs with a bite.
Xavier’s recruiting Class of 2014 is the reason it beat Arizona last week. In retrospect, it was a Top 10 or 15 class.
The Musketeers’ top player, Trevon Bluiett was a four-star recruit who was offered scholarships by Arizona, Florida and Louisville, and took a recruiting visit to UCLA. Arizona, however, took Stanley Johnson, so it didn’t need Bluiett.
Looking back, Arizona would’ve been better off taking Bluiett than the one-year Johnson, who averaged 13.8 points and had little impact in the 2015 postseason. A three-year player like Bluiett now looks like a better choice.
Xavier wing man J.P. Macura, a four-star prospect who gave Arizona a lot of trouble, was offered scholarships by Florida State, Purdue and Butler. And the Xavier big man who sunk Arizona with a last-minute layup, Sean O’Mara, turned down NCAA teams Virginia, Iowa State and Dayton to become a Musketeer.
The teams like Xavier who sign three- and four-star recruits and keep them for longer periods than schools like Arizona and UCLA, now swing a big stick in March.
Arizona has the bruises to prove it.
- Updated
Star columnist Greg Hansen counts down the year's best Southern Arizona sports figures.
In the first 10 years of his Arizona career, before the NCAA placed charter jets on standby to whisk the losers home 90 minutes after an exit loss, Lute Olson would invite the newspaper guys to his hotel suite a day after the game.
Olson would put the season in context, good or bad, and invariably let off some steam.
Once, after losing a first-round game to East Tennessee State in Atlanta, he bellowed that those questioning his coaching ability should first “show me their résumé.”
A year later, after another first-round loss, to Santa Clara, Olson was skewered on a Tucson sports-talk radio program so roundly that assistant coach Jim Rosborough encouraged Olson to phone in and defend himself.
He defiantly remained silent. Did not UA fans appreciate six Pac-10 championships in eight years, two seasons ranked No. 1, a Final Four appearance and a collection of victories over Duke, Syracuse, North Carolina and Michigan?
His record would speak. Olson would not apologize.
A year later, Arizona went to another Final Four. Olson ceased the post-NCAA Tournament meetings in his suite. Thereafter, the critics seemed to get it: Getting through the minefield of March would not always lead to a happy ending.
Now, 20 years later, the process is repeating. Arizona lost in the Sweet 16 and the chorus of unhappy fans swelled.
Sean Miller is a micromanager, said one. Miller doesn’t know how to beat a zone defense, said another. March has become Arizona’s personal Groundhog Day, with one deflating exit after another.
Some suggest Miller should hire better assistant coaches. Change his offense. Learn how to manage time-outs.
Fans are so unhappy that there won’t be an empty seat when the Wildcats stage their Red and Blue Scrimmage in October.
Miller took the blame late Thursday night in San Jose. “It’s on me,” he said. That’s enough. Move on. Miller is 48. When Olson was 48, Arizona fired head coach Fred Snowden and had difficulty filling 5,000 seats at McKale Center.
Miller’s best basketball is surely ahead, in 2018 and 2021 and down the line.
I thought the best perspective of Arizona’s basketball season came not from Miller’s post-game concession, but by watching his father, John Miller, during the loss to Xavier.
John Miller is 73. He coached four state championship teams in Pennsylvania high school basketball, won more than 600 games, and has since watched his sons, Sean and Archie — the younger Miller was named Indiana’s new head coach on Saturday — win a combined 479 college games and reach a cumulative 14 NCAA tournaments.
He knows how it goes.
John Miller sat with Archie three rows behind Arizona’s bench at the SAP Center. I couldn’t help but watch their reaction as the game seemed to be won, then lost.
Neither changed expression. John Miller didn’t pump a fist, yell at the refs or grimace in horror. He folded his arms across his chest, remained in his seat and took it in.
There will be another season. Arizona has never recruited at a higher level than now, even in the Olson years. There is not a crack in the foundation of UA basketball.
Losing to Xavier was neither a calamity nor a cue to wonder if Sean Miller has lost it. It was one bad night in the gym after months of good ones.
Only a handful of Tucson athletes have become notable Arizona State Sun Devils, none more than Tucson High and UA grad Billy Mann, who died last week in Phoenix at 93. For 15 years ASU’s golf coach, and also a basketball assistant coach under Ned Wulk, Mann graduated from Tucson High in 1943 and earned letters in football, basketball and baseball. He played a season of football at Arizona before being drafted into the Army, where he awarded bronze star for action with the 7th Infantry (tank corps).
After the war, Mann played four seasons of basketball for coach Fred Enke and was an infielder on the baseball team. From 1946-49, Mann played basketball for Arizona as it won 80 games and four straight Border Conference titles and played in the first postseason game in school history. He was a second-team All-Border Conference pick in 1948.
After graduating from Arizona, he coached basketball at two Phoenix high schools, then replaced former Wildcats teammate and future UA head basketball coach Bruce Larson as head coach at Weber State in 1959.
The only other Tucsonan/Arizona Wildcat standout who in later years became a Sun Devils coach was All-America tennis player Bill Lenoir of Tucson High.
Mann is not yet a member of the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame, a notable oversight. That should be corrected soon.
One day last April, after Salpointe Catholic guard Cameron Miller played in a weekend AAU showcase, he was offered seven scholarships in one day.
Division II and Division III schools from Maine, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana offered. All sorts of schools, including Portland State, Dixie State, Santa Clara, Denver and MIT called.
Sean Miller’s son was a hot property not because of his bloodlines, but because of his basketball IQ and steely approach to the game. A few weeks ago, Miller helped Salpointe reach the Class 4A state championship game.
It now seems unlikely he’ll sign with some faraway Division II school. Instead, his father last week told radio host Jim Rome that Cameron is likely to join the Arizona organization, either as a walk-on or in another role on the staff.
The Wildcats can always use another winner.
Before Central Michigan AD Dave Heeke takes office at Arizona next week, he’ll transition from one top softball program to another. The Chippewas have gone 17-1 in a recent streak, through Friday, and are favorites to win the Mid-American Conference. CMU’s leading player is probably Tucsonan Allison Curtis, who played at Salpointe. Curtis was an All-MAC outfielder as a freshman and was batting .397 through Friday’s games.
Sahuaro High grad Alex Verdugo hit .357 for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, going 5 for 14 as a starting center fielder, batting second in Mexico’s lineup. Back in the L.A. Dodgers’ spring training camp, Verdugo is hitting .231 in nine games and is expected to start the season at the Dodgers’ Triple-A club in Oklahoma City.
Tucson basketball referee Bob Scofield advanced to the Sweet 16, working Friday’s Washington-Mississippi State women’s game. Scofield mostly works Pac-12 games in the regular season, and missed two weeks last month with a calf injury. This is his eighth straight Sweet 16 and 19th NCAA Tournament. One of his colleagues, ex-UA basketball player Brenda Pantoja, also advanced to the women’s Sweet 16, calling Friday’s Baylor-Louisville game. NCAA basketball referees advance on a merit system, as evaluated by the NCAA game to game.
Salpointe and Pima College grad Ryan Ramsower has started seven games for Washington State’s baseball team, hitting .207. Ramsower, a second baseman, will face Arizona when the Wildcats play at WSU April 7-9.
The Pima College men’s basketball season ended with 22 victories, including one in the NJCAA Division II national finals in Illinois last week. It was the most victories in a season since 1991. Brian Peabody’s team could be even better next year. He has recruited well. But one of the better stories of PCC’s Region I championship team was the play of Tucson High grad Keegan Biggers at the NJCAAs. In the opening victory over Waubonsee College, Biggers came off the bench to score on two offensive rebound putbacks, helping the Aztecs lead 35-24. Biggers finished with four points and eight rebounds in just seven minutes. After the game, as Peabody commended his club, he didn’t immediately see Biggers, who was standing behind Peabody. “I thought he might be out signing autographs,” said Peabody. “We couldn’t have won without him.”
The UA athletic administration acted quickly in attempt to lend more visibility to Rich Rodriguez’s spring football camp. Initially, fans were invited only to an early-March, Thursday-night scrimmage. Crickets. Since then, the school developed a “Spring Showcase Series,” which continues with a Friday scrimmage at 6 p.m., and a meet-and-greet day next month.
Ex-NFL receiver Mike Thomas, who caught more passes than anyone in Arizona history, was arrested in Sandy Springs, Georgia, last week after he allegedly attacked his fiancée in a home in which a child’s birthday party was taking place downstairs. According to an Atlanta TV station, the 29-year-old Thomas was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony and third-degree child abuse.
The Rillito Race Track posted its highest betting handle ever, a record $1.7 million, in the six-week meet that ended a week ago. The total includes simulcast betting at parlors worldwide. According to Jaye Wells, president of the Rillito Park Foundation, a five-year lease extension from the county, helped to secure OTB contracts with other gambling sites around the world.
Arizona senior pitcher Danielle O’Toole’s no-hitter Friday night against No. 6 Washington was the 90th in UA history. How good is that? Arizona State’s pitchers have 35 no-hitters in history and Washington has 34. The Wildcats will play at doubleheader against Grand Canyon on Wednesday afternoon-evening at Hillenbrand Stadium and it’ll be old home week for four Antelopes, including assistant coach Kelsey Rodriguez, who in 2014 as a Wildcat standout was the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The Grand Canyon starting lineup includes Ironwood Ridge grad Loriann Olson, who is hitting .347, and CDO’s Niki Gonzalez, who is hitting .324 for a 25-9 team that is favored to win the WAC title.
Sabino High sophomore Maddie Mariani, who has committed to compete for Michigan as a college gymnast, is on an impressive streak. She won the Arizona State championships last week in Phoenix, not only winning the all-around championship, her fifth in succession, but also won the vault, beam and floor exercise competitions. Over a six-week period, Mariani also won the Pikes Peak Challenge in Colorado, the Valley of the Sun meet in Scottsdale and the Long Beach Open.
I have been as guilty as anyone in labeling Xavier as something less than an elite basketball school, but much like Wichita State, I now understand that the Musketeers and Shockers are Top 25 programs with a bite.
Xavier’s recruiting Class of 2014 is the reason it beat Arizona last week. In retrospect, it was a Top 10 or 15 class.
The Musketeers’ top player, Trevon Bluiett was a four-star recruit who was offered scholarships by Arizona, Florida and Louisville, and took a recruiting visit to UCLA. Arizona, however, took Stanley Johnson, so it didn’t need Bluiett.
Looking back, Arizona would’ve been better off taking Bluiett than the one-year Johnson, who averaged 13.8 points and had little impact in the 2015 postseason. A three-year player like Bluiett now looks like a better choice.
Xavier wing man J.P. Macura, a four-star prospect who gave Arizona a lot of trouble, was offered scholarships by Florida State, Purdue and Butler. And the Xavier big man who sunk Arizona with a last-minute layup, Sean O’Mara, turned down NCAA teams Virginia, Iowa State and Dayton to become a Musketeer.
The teams like Xavier who sign three- and four-star recruits and keep them for longer periods than schools like Arizona and UCLA, now swing a big stick in March.
Arizona has the bruises to prove it.
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