Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Adia Barnes' latest recruiting run is practically Sean Miller-esque
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Adia Barnes’ first season as Arizona’s women’s basketball coach was more of the same: a 5-13 Pac-12 record that fit uncomfortably with the UA’s 14-76 conference record of the previous five seasons.
And then everything changed.
In fewer than 100 days since Arizona’s final game, Barnes fought back. The UA coaching staff added six players to the UA roster, a six-woman group unprecedented in reputation, profile and potential in the program.
It was Sean Miller-esque.
Italy’s top inside prospect, Valeria Trucco, chose Arizona over Cal. Florida Atlantic junior Kat Wright, who once made 11 3-pointers in a game, joined the list. Then came the nation’s No. 12 overall prospect, Cate Reese of Texas. Iowa State’s Tee Tee Starks declared she would play her final two seasons at Arizona, and Purdue’s Dominique McBryde followed. And last week, Aarion McDonald — Washington’s leading returning scorer — announced that she was leaving for the UA.
In some ways, this isn’t totally unexpected. Barnes established a strong recruiting network in her years working for a Final Four program at Washington. Her engaging, get-it-done personality is contagious.
Her husband, Salvo Coppa, who has coached in Europe, the WNBA and Division I basketball, is part of one of Italy’s most well-known basketball families. He has worked his European connections.
But few, if any, could’ve expected Arizona to produce so well so soon. It might take until the 2019-20 season for Barnes to get Arizona back in NCAA Tournament contention, but she has caught the attention of the Pac-12.
When Joan Bonvicini coached Arizona to seven NCAA Tournaments from 1995-2004, she did so with much less recruiting notoriety. Barnes, her top player, was essentially a 2-star recruit from San Diego. Dominating center Shawntinice Polk had to delay her enrollment at Arizona until her academic status was approved by UA president Peter Likins. Bonvicini’s other star-level player, guard Dee Dee Wheeler of Chicago, was considered too short by many recruiters, and a better softball prospect by others.
Barnes has taken it a step further.
In a blowtorch-like month of high temperatures in Tucson, Barnes has cranked up the thermometer even more.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When legendary Arizona State football coach Frank Kush died last week in Phoenix at 88, the UA put his image on the large video board at Arizona Stadium.
That’s quite a tribute for a man who was 16-6 against the Wildcats, pushing UA football into the background similar to what Lute Olson did to Sun Devil basketball for 25 years.
In my early years in Tucson, I cherished the late nights at Camp Cochise when former Arizona Republic writers Bob Eger and Bob Jacobsen told their best Frank Kush stories.
Did you know he once was so irritated at a delay of a Camp Tontozona workout that he drove a bus through a locked gate?
In 1989, a decade after he left ASU and the Wildcats took command of the Territorial Cup, Kush drove to Tucson to promote the Rillito Park horse-racing season as part of his role with Phoenix’s Turf Paradise.
Kush was 60 then and it was the first time I got to sit alone with him. He had not lost his fighting spirit.
“I used to have a passionate desire to beat Arizona,” he said. “But not any longer. Hopefully, they’ll go to the Rose Bowl.”
I almost choked.
“One of my sons even attended the UA a few years ago,” he said. “I used to get so damn mad at him. He was so impressed with the UA, and it irritated me.”
Kush said he visited Tucson as infrequently as possible but recalled one of his rare trips for anything other than a football game.
In 1972, “They asked me to be the speaker for Lou Farber, who was retiring as the football coach at Pueblo High School. Well, I grew up knowing all about Lou; he had part of the ‘Iron Men’ of Brown team (of 1929),” Kush said. “So I said OK, but I didn’t tell anybody I was going down to Tucson.”
ASU was wise enough to erect a statue of Kush outside Sun Devil Stadium while he was healthy and aware enough to appreciate it. This should be a cue for Arizona to soon do the same for the 82-year-old Olson at McKale Center.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Drafted in the third round by the Houston Astros, UA’s All-America first baseman JJ Matijevic is about to begin what he hopes is a short journey to the big leagues. What he probably doesn’t know is how difficult it can be. Of Houston’s third-round draft picks from 2000-16, only two — Drew Stubbs and Kirk Saarloos — became starters for more than two years. Twelve of the Astros’ third-round draftees didn’t (or haven’t yet) reached the majors. Canyon del Oro graduate T.J. Steele, a fourth-round pick of Houston in 2008 and an All-Pac-10 outfielder for the Arizona Wildcats, was unable to advance past Double-A in five minor-league seasons.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Salpointe Catholic grad Andy Trouard, who helped NAU to the NCAA team cross country championship in November, was one of 23 to qualify for the men’s 5,000-meter finals at the USA Track and Field Championships on Friday in Sacramento, California. Trouard finished 11th. On the same night, former Arizona NCAA high jump champion Liz Patterson cleared 6 feet 3 ¼ inches to finish second, and fellow ex-Cat and NCAA champ Brigetta Barrett was fourth at 6-2. Ex-Pima College NJCAA high jump champion Kaysee Pilgrim was seventh overall. UA freshman high-jumper Justice Summerset of Mountain View High did not compete at the national championships. He will next compete July 21-27 in Lima, Peru, as part of Team USA’s roster at the Pan American Junior Games.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Gordon Overstreet, one of the top referees and officials in Tucson history, died last week at 95. Overstreet was a regular on press row at McKale Center for about 20 years, serving as the official observer of referees for the Pac-10. Before that, Overstreet worked as a football and basketball referee in the WAC and Border Conference, as well as in scores of high school playoff games.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
In 2005, Palo Verde High quarterback Victor Yates led the Titans to the state football championship. Incredibly, Yates didn’t complete a pass but was resourceful enough to win a championship. He then became a walk-on defensive back at Arizona for five seasons. Yates was a finalist for the Rudy Award in 2010, an honor emblematic of 1975 walk-on Notre Dame quarterback Rudy Ruettiger, about whom the inspirational movie “Rudy” was made. After leaving Arizona, Yates was hired by UT-San Antonio as an athletic department fund-raiser. At a 2014 Arizona-UTSA game in San Antonio, Yates told me his goal is to be a major-college athletic director. He took a big step in that direction last week when he was hired by ASU to be an assistant athletic director in charge of major gifts for the Sun Devils. He is an impressive young man.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
New Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes has created an “Ideation Team,” which serves as an in-house advertising agency with the goal of telling the Beavers’ story to fans and recruits. It’s about branding, social media, design and technology. Arizona doesn’t have a clever nickname like “Ideation Team,” but the Wildcats jumped ahead of the curve in the Greg Byrne days; he created a five-person creative services team, a four-person technology team and a four-person marketing team.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Kaleb Tarczewski and Nick Johnson returned to Tucson last week to train at the Richard Jefferson Gymnasium. Tarczewski left the NBA G League (formerly the D League) at midseason and became a starter for Italy’s Armani Milano, the league champion, averaging 6.7 points and 5.1 rebounds. Johnson, who also left the G League at mid-season, was the sixth man for Germany powerhouse Bayern München, which finished 28-4. Johnson averaged 7.1 points, but has since decided to leave Bayern to play elsewhere in 2017-18.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The UA has chosen to depart from its traditional Sports Hall of Fame selection protocol this year and induct an all-swimming class. The group includes individual swimmers Lara Jackson, Lacey Nymeyer John, Albert Subirats and Darian Townsend. On Aug. 31 at the Westin LaPaloma, it will also induct nine NCAA championship relay teams of 2006-10, when the Wildcats were one of the three or four top swimming programs in the NCAA. The prowess of Frank Busch’s swimming program can be told in these numbers: since 2000, 66 of the 163 inductees into the UA Sports Hall of Fame are from the aquatics program. That’s 41 percent. Ironically, Arizona has been working without a head swimming coach now for 34 days. The most noticeable part of Busch’s departure at Arizona five years ago is that only one active UA swimmer, Katrina Konopka, is among the contenders at this week’s USA National championships. In past years, the Wildcats would have 10 to 20 contenders.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
It’s possible that the top two incoming freshmen at Arizona are shot-putter Jordan Geist of the greater Pittsburgh area, and Canyon del Oro discus thrower Turner Washington. Both were record-setting high school national champions this year and both won the New Balance national championships last week in North Carolina. Washington already has a potential rival for Pac-12 honors for the next four years: Jonah Wilson of Clovis, California, set the California prep discus record this year and has signed to compete at Washington. At the national finals in North Carolina, Washington beat Wilson by 21 inches.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
If any school and its basketball players know the difficulty of making (and thriving) on an NBA roster, it is Arizona.
The Wildcats have now had 20 first-round NBA Draft picks since the league adopted a two-round format in 1989. By comparison, Arizona’s football team has had six first-round choices since 1989.
When last week’s No. 53 overall choice, Kadeem Allen, joins the Boston Celtics in training camp, his odds of making the team, or getting into the rotation, are a bit daunting.
Boston returns three shooting guards from its 2016-17 roster: 27-year-old Avery Bradley, who played 33 minutes per game; 23-year-old Marcus Smart, a former No. 6 overall pick who averaged 30 minutes per game; and former No. 17 overall draftee James Young of Kentucky, who played just seven minutes per game last year.
Earning playing time in the NBA is so difficult that the Celtics’ No. 3 overall pick of 2016, Cal’s Jaylen Brown, averaged just 17 minutes in his rookie season.
But like many, I think Allen will reach the NBA and stick when he gets there, even if it requires a year or more in the G League (formerly the D League), and many nights sitting at the end of the bench.
Allen is a grinder who is physical, plays in-your-face defense and is willing to be a teammate first.
Allen is the 12th Wildcat drafted between Nos. 40-60 and only two before him — Steve Kerr at No. 50 and Chase Budinger at No. 44 — stayed in the NBA for more than a cup of coffee.
Adia Barnes’ first season as Arizona’s women’s basketball coach was more of the same: a 5-13 Pac-12 record that fit uncomfortably with the UA’s 14-76 conference record of the previous five seasons.
And then everything changed.
In fewer than 100 days since Arizona’s final game, Barnes fought back. The UA coaching staff added six players to the UA roster, a six-woman group unprecedented in reputation, profile and potential in the program.
It was Sean Miller-esque.
Italy’s top inside prospect, Valeria Trucco, chose Arizona over Cal. Florida Atlantic junior Kat Wright, who once made 11 3-pointers in a game, joined the list. Then came the nation’s No. 12 overall prospect, Cate Reese of Texas. Iowa State’s Tee Tee Starks declared she would play her final two seasons at Arizona, and Purdue’s Dominique McBryde followed. And last week, Aarion McDonald — Washington’s leading returning scorer — announced that she was leaving for the UA.
In some ways, this isn’t totally unexpected. Barnes established a strong recruiting network in her years working for a Final Four program at Washington. Her engaging, get-it-done personality is contagious.
Her husband, Salvo Coppa, who has coached in Europe, the WNBA and Division I basketball, is part of one of Italy’s most well-known basketball families. He has worked his European connections.
But few, if any, could’ve expected Arizona to produce so well so soon. It might take until the 2019-20 season for Barnes to get Arizona back in NCAA Tournament contention, but she has caught the attention of the Pac-12.
When Joan Bonvicini coached Arizona to seven NCAA Tournaments from 1995-2004, she did so with much less recruiting notoriety. Barnes, her top player, was essentially a 2-star recruit from San Diego. Dominating center Shawntinice Polk had to delay her enrollment at Arizona until her academic status was approved by UA president Peter Likins. Bonvicini’s other star-level player, guard Dee Dee Wheeler of Chicago, was considered too short by many recruiters, and a better softball prospect by others.
Barnes has taken it a step further.
In a blowtorch-like month of high temperatures in Tucson, Barnes has cranked up the thermometer even more.
When legendary Arizona State football coach Frank Kush died last week in Phoenix at 88, the UA put his image on the large video board at Arizona Stadium.
That’s quite a tribute for a man who was 16-6 against the Wildcats, pushing UA football into the background similar to what Lute Olson did to Sun Devil basketball for 25 years.
In my early years in Tucson, I cherished the late nights at Camp Cochise when former Arizona Republic writers Bob Eger and Bob Jacobsen told their best Frank Kush stories.
Did you know he once was so irritated at a delay of a Camp Tontozona workout that he drove a bus through a locked gate?
In 1989, a decade after he left ASU and the Wildcats took command of the Territorial Cup, Kush drove to Tucson to promote the Rillito Park horse-racing season as part of his role with Phoenix’s Turf Paradise.
Kush was 60 then and it was the first time I got to sit alone with him. He had not lost his fighting spirit.
“I used to have a passionate desire to beat Arizona,” he said. “But not any longer. Hopefully, they’ll go to the Rose Bowl.”
I almost choked.
“One of my sons even attended the UA a few years ago,” he said. “I used to get so damn mad at him. He was so impressed with the UA, and it irritated me.”
Kush said he visited Tucson as infrequently as possible but recalled one of his rare trips for anything other than a football game.
In 1972, “They asked me to be the speaker for Lou Farber, who was retiring as the football coach at Pueblo High School. Well, I grew up knowing all about Lou; he had part of the ‘Iron Men’ of Brown team (of 1929),” Kush said. “So I said OK, but I didn’t tell anybody I was going down to Tucson.”
ASU was wise enough to erect a statue of Kush outside Sun Devil Stadium while he was healthy and aware enough to appreciate it. This should be a cue for Arizona to soon do the same for the 82-year-old Olson at McKale Center.
Drafted in the third round by the Houston Astros, UA’s All-America first baseman JJ Matijevic is about to begin what he hopes is a short journey to the big leagues. What he probably doesn’t know is how difficult it can be. Of Houston’s third-round draft picks from 2000-16, only two — Drew Stubbs and Kirk Saarloos — became starters for more than two years. Twelve of the Astros’ third-round draftees didn’t (or haven’t yet) reached the majors. Canyon del Oro graduate T.J. Steele, a fourth-round pick of Houston in 2008 and an All-Pac-10 outfielder for the Arizona Wildcats, was unable to advance past Double-A in five minor-league seasons.
Salpointe Catholic grad Andy Trouard, who helped NAU to the NCAA team cross country championship in November, was one of 23 to qualify for the men’s 5,000-meter finals at the USA Track and Field Championships on Friday in Sacramento, California. Trouard finished 11th. On the same night, former Arizona NCAA high jump champion Liz Patterson cleared 6 feet 3 ¼ inches to finish second, and fellow ex-Cat and NCAA champ Brigetta Barrett was fourth at 6-2. Ex-Pima College NJCAA high jump champion Kaysee Pilgrim was seventh overall. UA freshman high-jumper Justice Summerset of Mountain View High did not compete at the national championships. He will next compete July 21-27 in Lima, Peru, as part of Team USA’s roster at the Pan American Junior Games.
Gordon Overstreet, one of the top referees and officials in Tucson history, died last week at 95. Overstreet was a regular on press row at McKale Center for about 20 years, serving as the official observer of referees for the Pac-10. Before that, Overstreet worked as a football and basketball referee in the WAC and Border Conference, as well as in scores of high school playoff games.
In 2005, Palo Verde High quarterback Victor Yates led the Titans to the state football championship. Incredibly, Yates didn’t complete a pass but was resourceful enough to win a championship. He then became a walk-on defensive back at Arizona for five seasons. Yates was a finalist for the Rudy Award in 2010, an honor emblematic of 1975 walk-on Notre Dame quarterback Rudy Ruettiger, about whom the inspirational movie “Rudy” was made. After leaving Arizona, Yates was hired by UT-San Antonio as an athletic department fund-raiser. At a 2014 Arizona-UTSA game in San Antonio, Yates told me his goal is to be a major-college athletic director. He took a big step in that direction last week when he was hired by ASU to be an assistant athletic director in charge of major gifts for the Sun Devils. He is an impressive young man.
New Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes has created an “Ideation Team,” which serves as an in-house advertising agency with the goal of telling the Beavers’ story to fans and recruits. It’s about branding, social media, design and technology. Arizona doesn’t have a clever nickname like “Ideation Team,” but the Wildcats jumped ahead of the curve in the Greg Byrne days; he created a five-person creative services team, a four-person technology team and a four-person marketing team.
Kaleb Tarczewski and Nick Johnson returned to Tucson last week to train at the Richard Jefferson Gymnasium. Tarczewski left the NBA G League (formerly the D League) at midseason and became a starter for Italy’s Armani Milano, the league champion, averaging 6.7 points and 5.1 rebounds. Johnson, who also left the G League at mid-season, was the sixth man for Germany powerhouse Bayern München, which finished 28-4. Johnson averaged 7.1 points, but has since decided to leave Bayern to play elsewhere in 2017-18.
The UA has chosen to depart from its traditional Sports Hall of Fame selection protocol this year and induct an all-swimming class. The group includes individual swimmers Lara Jackson, Lacey Nymeyer John, Albert Subirats and Darian Townsend. On Aug. 31 at the Westin LaPaloma, it will also induct nine NCAA championship relay teams of 2006-10, when the Wildcats were one of the three or four top swimming programs in the NCAA. The prowess of Frank Busch’s swimming program can be told in these numbers: since 2000, 66 of the 163 inductees into the UA Sports Hall of Fame are from the aquatics program. That’s 41 percent. Ironically, Arizona has been working without a head swimming coach now for 34 days. The most noticeable part of Busch’s departure at Arizona five years ago is that only one active UA swimmer, Katrina Konopka, is among the contenders at this week’s USA National championships. In past years, the Wildcats would have 10 to 20 contenders.
It’s possible that the top two incoming freshmen at Arizona are shot-putter Jordan Geist of the greater Pittsburgh area, and Canyon del Oro discus thrower Turner Washington. Both were record-setting high school national champions this year and both won the New Balance national championships last week in North Carolina. Washington already has a potential rival for Pac-12 honors for the next four years: Jonah Wilson of Clovis, California, set the California prep discus record this year and has signed to compete at Washington. At the national finals in North Carolina, Washington beat Wilson by 21 inches.
If any school and its basketball players know the difficulty of making (and thriving) on an NBA roster, it is Arizona.
The Wildcats have now had 20 first-round NBA Draft picks since the league adopted a two-round format in 1989. By comparison, Arizona’s football team has had six first-round choices since 1989.
When last week’s No. 53 overall choice, Kadeem Allen, joins the Boston Celtics in training camp, his odds of making the team, or getting into the rotation, are a bit daunting.
Boston returns three shooting guards from its 2016-17 roster: 27-year-old Avery Bradley, who played 33 minutes per game; 23-year-old Marcus Smart, a former No. 6 overall pick who averaged 30 minutes per game; and former No. 17 overall draftee James Young of Kentucky, who played just seven minutes per game last year.
Earning playing time in the NBA is so difficult that the Celtics’ No. 3 overall pick of 2016, Cal’s Jaylen Brown, averaged just 17 minutes in his rookie season.
But like many, I think Allen will reach the NBA and stick when he gets there, even if it requires a year or more in the G League (formerly the D League), and many nights sitting at the end of the bench.
Allen is a grinder who is physical, plays in-your-face defense and is willing to be a teammate first.
Allen is the 12th Wildcat drafted between Nos. 40-60 and only two before him — Steve Kerr at No. 50 and Chase Budinger at No. 44 — stayed in the NBA for more than a cup of coffee.
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