Hansen's Sunday Notebook: NBA Combine performance will make or break Arizona's Rawle Alkins
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The NCAA last week published a study indicating that 1.1 percent of all Division I college basketball players are selected in the NBA Draft.
That doesn’t apply to Arizona. If you estimate that the Wildcats recruited five players per year over the last 50 seasons, 18 percent of UA recruits (46 of 250) were selected in the first 60 of the NBA Draft.
Rawle Alkins, who was Arizona’s fourth option on offense during his freshman season, who never took The Big Shot in a close game, believes he’ll be No. 47.
When he arrives in Chicago for the NBA Combine on May 9, hundreds of NBA general managers, scouts and coaches will decide if Alkins is draft-worthy. Almost none of it will have to do with Alkins’ you-can’t-help-but-like-this-guy personality.
Alkins, who was listed at 6 feet 5 inches and 220 pounds by Arizona, will spend one day just getting measured. The NBA people will measure his body fat, hand length, hand width, his height with and without shoes, his standing reach, his standing jump and his wingspan.
A day later he will go through shooting drills at 15 spots, from a transition jumper to an NBA distance 3-pointer. He will do those shots both as a stationary shooter and off the dribble. He will be timed in a shuttle run, in a lane-agility drill and in a length-of-the-court sprint.
He’ll do some half-court scrimmaging in which the NBA examiners will chart every move. Is he fluid, quick and decisive? Can he finish at the rim? Are his shooting mechanics sound? Is he strong enough to play the NBA’s push-and-shove game? Can he go to his left? Does he have a basketball IQ?
Because Alkins is projected as an NBA shooting guard, he’ll be asked to be a productive 3-point shooter and secondary ball-handler. At Arizona, he averaged 1.2 3-pointers per game. He was not a ball-handler.
In three days, the NBA people will determine whether Alkins is likely to be drafted or if they’ll cross his name off the list and keep an eye on him as he tries to connect with a EuroLeague team.
One of the unspoken risks of fringe prospects who make themselves eligible for the NBA Draft process is the fear of being exposed as not-ready-for-prime-time.
If Alkins thought the Sweet 16 against Xavier was a Big Game, his three days in Chicago will be the biggest game of his young life.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One of the most anticipated events of the year in Arizona high school sports will be held Sunday night in Tempe as the Arizona Republic stages the 2016-17 Sports Award extravaganza.
Seven Tucsonans are finalists in their sport: Sabino quarterback Drew Dixon, Sunnyside wrestler Roman Bravo-Young, Salpointe Catholic golfer Trevor Werbylo, Catalina Foothills golfer Gavin Cohen, Gregory School basketball player Taylor Thompson, CDO discus/shot put thrower Turner Washington and Palo Verde soccer player Jacqueline Iglu.
Salpointe state championship girls soccer coach Becky Freeman and Sunnyside wrestling coach Anthony Leon have already been chosen as the coach of the year in their sport.
The night’s two biggest awards — Male and Female Athlete of the Year — could be won by Southern Arizonans. Rio Rico High School distance runner Allie Schadler and Sunnyside’s Bravo-Young deserve strong consideration as the best in the state.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Tucson's athletes of the week:
• Catalina Foothills senior pitcher Sam Alberts pitched a no-hitter for 6ª innings last week against Nogales, the state’s No. 1 Class 4A baseball team. It was Alberts’ last high school game; he has been accepted into the UA Honors College but is also weighing an academic scholarship offer to pitch at Division III Beloit College in Wisconsin. Sam has some impressive genes: His grandfather, Dr. David Alberts, is the director emeritus and one of the formative leaders of the University of Arizona Cancer Center. Sam Alberts left Tuesday’s game after throwing 106 pitches. Reliever Addison Ryberg, who earlier doubled and scored the game’s only run, completed the no-hitter against the top-ranked Apaches.
• Sahuaro High School grad Desiree Hong was named the ACCAC’s women’s golfer of the year last week. It was Hong’s second such honor at Pima College. She will play in the NJCAA finals May 15-18 in Georgia. Hong, who has a stroke average of 74.8, has committed to play for Laura Ianello’s UA golf team next year and is a strong contender to be a first-team NJCAA All-American. To be an impact golfer at Arizona, Hong will likely need to shave about two strokes off her average. Arizona All-Pac-12 golfers Haley Moore, 70.67, and Krystal Quihuis, 72.04, rank in the top 50 of all NCAA women’s golfers.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Different strokes, different folks: In Arizona’s 2013 Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State, senior point guard Mark Lyons, the UA’s best player, scored 23 points. He was not drafted but has excelled in the EuroLeague, leading Maccabi Rishon to the 2016 Israel title, and then leaving as a free agent to take a better contract with Hapoel Tel Aviv, where he leads the league in scoring at 20.2 per game. On the same Arizona 2013 team, freshman Brandon Ashley scored four points in the Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State. Ashley remained in Tucson through his junior season, becoming the 2015 MVP at the Pac-12 Tournament before entering the NBA Draft. He was not selected. He split the 2015-16 season in the NBA D-League and on Germany’s Alba Berlin franchise, where he became snagged in a contract dispute. That dispute forced Ashley to sit out the entire 2016-17 season. Lyons turns 28 in July; Ashley 23. The after-college careers of those who played basketball at Arizona could make a riveting film documentary.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
UA and Catalina Foothills High School grad Matt Brase and his D-League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, finished second to Raptors 905 in the league finals last week. Most know that Brase is Lute Olson’s grandson. There’s much more to the story. Matt’s father, Tucson dentist Jon Brase, was a key part of Iowa’s 1974 Big Ten baseball co-championship; he hit a three-run homer against Minnesota to clinch that title. Matt’s paternal grandfather, Marven Brase, was a basketball coach at Iowa’s Edgewood High School in the 1950s and 1960s. Good genes all the way around.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Former UA athletic director Greg Byrne is running with a different crowd as Alabama’s AD. Last week, he got the chance to play Augusta National Golf Club, where he made the best of the opportunity, shooting an 83, including a 40 on the back nine. Byrne grew up as a golfer/basketball player in Eugene, Oregon, but was often limited to no more than three or four golf days a year in his busy 6½ years at Arizona.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Tucson’s Delaney Schnell, who will be one of the elite incoming freshmen athletes at Arizona in 2017-18, was named to USA Diving’s 2017 High Performance Squad last week. Schnell was one of 21 USA Diving team members to make the “tier-one” squad.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
In its 6-1 finish to the baseball regular season, earning the No. 2 overall seed in Class 4A’s state playoffs that begin Tuesday, Salpointe Catholic got remarkable walk-off hit performances to beat Tucson, Catalina Foothills and CDO this month. Daniel Durazo, who is hitting .374, singled in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh to beat Tucson 4-3; J. Bill Rivera, who is hitting .324, did the same thing to beat Foothills 4-3; and Efrian Cervantes, who finished the regular season with a .427 batting average, beat CDO with a walk-off single 10-9. The Lancers are the highest-ranked Tucson team in the state baseball tournament.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Cienega opened the Class 5A state softball playoffs ranked No. 1, and beat Gilbert Campo Verde 6-0 in Saturday’s first round. The Bobcats are led by senior infielder Tori Brown, who hit .455 with 10 home runs. Brown has already signed with Pac-12 contending Utah. Utes coach Amy Hogue has made her presence known in Tucson: She also has a commitment from CDO junior outfielder Ellessa Bonstrom, who hit .483 with 10 homers for the No. 1-seeded Dorados. CDO cruised to a 15-0 win over Gila Ridge in Saturday’s playoff opener.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
ASU athletic director Ray Anderson has scheduled a six-city athletic caravan tour May 10-24. The itinerary won’t include Tucson. The negative kickback from a stop at a Tucson restaurant two years ago was enough to know Tucson isn’t big enough — or neutral enough — to survive a marketing blitz by the Devils. Arizona, meanwhile, will take coaches Sean Miller and Rich Rodriguez on a caravanthat includes a Wednesday night stop in Tempe. ASU isn’t alone in lacking a Tucson presence; the Suns and Diamondbacks have no real base in Tucson. This is much more a town that follows the Lakers, Warriors, Cubs, Yankees and Dodgers. The only sports entity in Tucson with a core of Southern Arizona followers is the Cardinals. The NFL sells everywhere.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Lydia Murphy-Stephans, president of the Pac-12 Networks, resigned last week. She was paid $1.25 million per year and also received a $400,000 bonus a year ago.
Along with commissioner Larry Scott, her administration and perceived platform was too much sophistication and not enough of a meat-and-potatoes approach.
Perhaps because Scott was an elite-class tennis player, and Murphy-Stephans an Olympic speed skater, Pac-12 Networks programming overflows with soccer, swimming, beach volleyball, tennis and other non-revenue sports.
If the Pac-12 Networks are to get a larger share of the viewing market – and therefore more revenue for its schools — Murphy-Stephans’ replacement must realize that football and men’s basketball are the only events that will entice a broker such as DirecTV.
What advertiser wants to put his money into an Oregon State-Cal women’s soccer game seen by less than .001 percent of a possible West Coast audience?
As a Dish Network subscriber in Tucson, my access to the Pac-12 Networks is maddening. I get an Arizona baseball game if it is on the league’s national feed, but not if it’s on a regional, Arizona-based feed. The same is true with UA softball games.
To viewers and to many on each campus, the Pac-12 Networks isn’t viewed as an easily-accessible and first-class partnership, but as some swank San Francisco boutique operation that’ll give you plenty of UCLA-USC tennis, but not enough of what you really want to watch.
The NCAA last week published a study indicating that 1.1 percent of all Division I college basketball players are selected in the NBA Draft.
That doesn’t apply to Arizona. If you estimate that the Wildcats recruited five players per year over the last 50 seasons, 18 percent of UA recruits (46 of 250) were selected in the first 60 of the NBA Draft.
Rawle Alkins, who was Arizona’s fourth option on offense during his freshman season, who never took The Big Shot in a close game, believes he’ll be No. 47.
When he arrives in Chicago for the NBA Combine on May 9, hundreds of NBA general managers, scouts and coaches will decide if Alkins is draft-worthy. Almost none of it will have to do with Alkins’ you-can’t-help-but-like-this-guy personality.
Alkins, who was listed at 6 feet 5 inches and 220 pounds by Arizona, will spend one day just getting measured. The NBA people will measure his body fat, hand length, hand width, his height with and without shoes, his standing reach, his standing jump and his wingspan.
A day later he will go through shooting drills at 15 spots, from a transition jumper to an NBA distance 3-pointer. He will do those shots both as a stationary shooter and off the dribble. He will be timed in a shuttle run, in a lane-agility drill and in a length-of-the-court sprint.
He’ll do some half-court scrimmaging in which the NBA examiners will chart every move. Is he fluid, quick and decisive? Can he finish at the rim? Are his shooting mechanics sound? Is he strong enough to play the NBA’s push-and-shove game? Can he go to his left? Does he have a basketball IQ?
Because Alkins is projected as an NBA shooting guard, he’ll be asked to be a productive 3-point shooter and secondary ball-handler. At Arizona, he averaged 1.2 3-pointers per game. He was not a ball-handler.
In three days, the NBA people will determine whether Alkins is likely to be drafted or if they’ll cross his name off the list and keep an eye on him as he tries to connect with a EuroLeague team.
One of the unspoken risks of fringe prospects who make themselves eligible for the NBA Draft process is the fear of being exposed as not-ready-for-prime-time.
If Alkins thought the Sweet 16 against Xavier was a Big Game, his three days in Chicago will be the biggest game of his young life.
One of the most anticipated events of the year in Arizona high school sports will be held Sunday night in Tempe as the Arizona Republic stages the 2016-17 Sports Award extravaganza.
Seven Tucsonans are finalists in their sport: Sabino quarterback Drew Dixon, Sunnyside wrestler Roman Bravo-Young, Salpointe Catholic golfer Trevor Werbylo, Catalina Foothills golfer Gavin Cohen, Gregory School basketball player Taylor Thompson, CDO discus/shot put thrower Turner Washington and Palo Verde soccer player Jacqueline Iglu.
Salpointe state championship girls soccer coach Becky Freeman and Sunnyside wrestling coach Anthony Leon have already been chosen as the coach of the year in their sport.
The night’s two biggest awards — Male and Female Athlete of the Year — could be won by Southern Arizonans. Rio Rico High School distance runner Allie Schadler and Sunnyside’s Bravo-Young deserve strong consideration as the best in the state.
Tucson's athletes of the week:
• Catalina Foothills senior pitcher Sam Alberts pitched a no-hitter for 6ª innings last week against Nogales, the state’s No. 1 Class 4A baseball team. It was Alberts’ last high school game; he has been accepted into the UA Honors College but is also weighing an academic scholarship offer to pitch at Division III Beloit College in Wisconsin. Sam has some impressive genes: His grandfather, Dr. David Alberts, is the director emeritus and one of the formative leaders of the University of Arizona Cancer Center. Sam Alberts left Tuesday’s game after throwing 106 pitches. Reliever Addison Ryberg, who earlier doubled and scored the game’s only run, completed the no-hitter against the top-ranked Apaches.
• Sahuaro High School grad Desiree Hong was named the ACCAC’s women’s golfer of the year last week. It was Hong’s second such honor at Pima College. She will play in the NJCAA finals May 15-18 in Georgia. Hong, who has a stroke average of 74.8, has committed to play for Laura Ianello’s UA golf team next year and is a strong contender to be a first-team NJCAA All-American. To be an impact golfer at Arizona, Hong will likely need to shave about two strokes off her average. Arizona All-Pac-12 golfers Haley Moore, 70.67, and Krystal Quihuis, 72.04, rank in the top 50 of all NCAA women’s golfers.
Different strokes, different folks: In Arizona’s 2013 Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State, senior point guard Mark Lyons, the UA’s best player, scored 23 points. He was not drafted but has excelled in the EuroLeague, leading Maccabi Rishon to the 2016 Israel title, and then leaving as a free agent to take a better contract with Hapoel Tel Aviv, where he leads the league in scoring at 20.2 per game. On the same Arizona 2013 team, freshman Brandon Ashley scored four points in the Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State. Ashley remained in Tucson through his junior season, becoming the 2015 MVP at the Pac-12 Tournament before entering the NBA Draft. He was not selected. He split the 2015-16 season in the NBA D-League and on Germany’s Alba Berlin franchise, where he became snagged in a contract dispute. That dispute forced Ashley to sit out the entire 2016-17 season. Lyons turns 28 in July; Ashley 23. The after-college careers of those who played basketball at Arizona could make a riveting film documentary.
UA and Catalina Foothills High School grad Matt Brase and his D-League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, finished second to Raptors 905 in the league finals last week. Most know that Brase is Lute Olson’s grandson. There’s much more to the story. Matt’s father, Tucson dentist Jon Brase, was a key part of Iowa’s 1974 Big Ten baseball co-championship; he hit a three-run homer against Minnesota to clinch that title. Matt’s paternal grandfather, Marven Brase, was a basketball coach at Iowa’s Edgewood High School in the 1950s and 1960s. Good genes all the way around.
Former UA athletic director Greg Byrne is running with a different crowd as Alabama’s AD. Last week, he got the chance to play Augusta National Golf Club, where he made the best of the opportunity, shooting an 83, including a 40 on the back nine. Byrne grew up as a golfer/basketball player in Eugene, Oregon, but was often limited to no more than three or four golf days a year in his busy 6½ years at Arizona.
Tucson’s Delaney Schnell, who will be one of the elite incoming freshmen athletes at Arizona in 2017-18, was named to USA Diving’s 2017 High Performance Squad last week. Schnell was one of 21 USA Diving team members to make the “tier-one” squad.
In its 6-1 finish to the baseball regular season, earning the No. 2 overall seed in Class 4A’s state playoffs that begin Tuesday, Salpointe Catholic got remarkable walk-off hit performances to beat Tucson, Catalina Foothills and CDO this month. Daniel Durazo, who is hitting .374, singled in the winning run in the bottom of the seventh to beat Tucson 4-3; J. Bill Rivera, who is hitting .324, did the same thing to beat Foothills 4-3; and Efrian Cervantes, who finished the regular season with a .427 batting average, beat CDO with a walk-off single 10-9. The Lancers are the highest-ranked Tucson team in the state baseball tournament.
Cienega opened the Class 5A state softball playoffs ranked No. 1, and beat Gilbert Campo Verde 6-0 in Saturday’s first round. The Bobcats are led by senior infielder Tori Brown, who hit .455 with 10 home runs. Brown has already signed with Pac-12 contending Utah. Utes coach Amy Hogue has made her presence known in Tucson: She also has a commitment from CDO junior outfielder Ellessa Bonstrom, who hit .483 with 10 homers for the No. 1-seeded Dorados. CDO cruised to a 15-0 win over Gila Ridge in Saturday’s playoff opener.
ASU athletic director Ray Anderson has scheduled a six-city athletic caravan tour May 10-24. The itinerary won’t include Tucson. The negative kickback from a stop at a Tucson restaurant two years ago was enough to know Tucson isn’t big enough — or neutral enough — to survive a marketing blitz by the Devils. Arizona, meanwhile, will take coaches Sean Miller and Rich Rodriguez on a caravanthat includes a Wednesday night stop in Tempe. ASU isn’t alone in lacking a Tucson presence; the Suns and Diamondbacks have no real base in Tucson. This is much more a town that follows the Lakers, Warriors, Cubs, Yankees and Dodgers. The only sports entity in Tucson with a core of Southern Arizona followers is the Cardinals. The NFL sells everywhere.
Lydia Murphy-Stephans, president of the Pac-12 Networks, resigned last week. She was paid $1.25 million per year and also received a $400,000 bonus a year ago.
Along with commissioner Larry Scott, her administration and perceived platform was too much sophistication and not enough of a meat-and-potatoes approach.
Perhaps because Scott was an elite-class tennis player, and Murphy-Stephans an Olympic speed skater, Pac-12 Networks programming overflows with soccer, swimming, beach volleyball, tennis and other non-revenue sports.
If the Pac-12 Networks are to get a larger share of the viewing market – and therefore more revenue for its schools — Murphy-Stephans’ replacement must realize that football and men’s basketball are the only events that will entice a broker such as DirecTV.
What advertiser wants to put his money into an Oregon State-Cal women’s soccer game seen by less than .001 percent of a possible West Coast audience?
As a Dish Network subscriber in Tucson, my access to the Pac-12 Networks is maddening. I get an Arizona baseball game if it is on the league’s national feed, but not if it’s on a regional, Arizona-based feed. The same is true with UA softball games.
To viewers and to many on each campus, the Pac-12 Networks isn’t viewed as an easily-accessible and first-class partnership, but as some swank San Francisco boutique operation that’ll give you plenty of UCLA-USC tennis, but not enough of what you really want to watch.
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