Party at the Davis Center

Arizona welcomed about 350 donors to a pre-game reception to formally open the indoor Cole and Jeanne Davis Sports Center, the sort of pre-game festivity likely to be held there often for football and other sports.

“This is a piece of the puzzle that we needed here at Arizona that will be used before basketball or any McKale events as well,” UA athletic director Dave Heeke said.

Of course, that’s not the only way the $16.5 million facility will be used.

The primary purpose is for football, allowing the Wildcats to practice at a scheduled time regardless of whether late-summer monsoon storms hit or other weather adversity arrives throughout the year. Heeke said 10 UA football practices were affected by monsoon weather last season alone, a fact UA football coach Kevin Sumlin has reminded him of.

“From an efficiency standpoint, this allows them to practice whenever they’re scheduled to, and move on with their day,” Heeke said.

But Heeke said all of the school’s 21 programs will use the facility, whether it be soccer players avoiding a storm, track athletes running sprints or baseball and softball players working on drills.

“Most of our student-athletes will touch this in one form or another,” Heeke said.

The logistics

Welcome to the new Cole and Jeannie Davis Sports Center. pic.twitter.com/p020xLpATe

— The Wildcaster (@TheWildcaster) February 25, 2019

The facility features a 90-yard field with a FieldTurf artificial surface that has ground-up rubber bits providing a cushion. At the north end are bathrooms and a utility room, while the south end features doors that open to two rooms — one for storing football equipment and another for storing tailgating/catering furniture.

Also, in what may be most important, it is expected to be climate-controlled, in the mid- or low-70s.

Heeke said the part he likes most about it is the garage-style doors that open toward the east, and the accompanying outdoor field, allowing teams to practice both inside and outside at the same time or quickly move back and forth.

“It is really efficient,” Heeke said.

Butler’s UA-UConn memories

Longtime Arizona fans may still feel the sting from a controversial goaltending call against Loren Woods that cost the fifth-ranked Wildcats a 71-69 loss at UConn during UA’s Final Four season of 2000-01.

ESPNU broadcaster Caron Butler, who was on the floor for the Huskies in that one, remembers the game well.

“Could have gone either way,” Butler said before working Sunday’s game, smiling. “But it went our way.”

Butler said he loved playing in the game against a UA team that featured Woods, Richard Jefferson, Gilbert Arenas, Luke Walton and Jason Gardner. He also faced a younger version of that group when the Huskies beat UA 79-69 at McKale during the 1999-2000 season.

“There were tons of fans and it was going crazy,” Butler said of that game, before working the call Sunday with Roxy Bernstein. “That’s what you live for. And now here I am calling the game.”

Vegas mood

In what might have been something of a warm-up act for the kind of halftime shows featured during the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas, Cassie and Konstantin Sandou of Cirque Entertainment put on a “Quick Change Act” during halftime at McKale.

The Moldova-born Konstatin Sandou and his Utah-born wife took turns changing into totally different outfits in mere seconds inside fabric tubes, while Konstantin also popped 12 rods through a box where his wife was before she emerged unscathed.

Technically, according to Cirque Entertainment, the box is known as a “Death defying Magic Illusion Box.” The company also says its quick-change artists “puzzle the minds of their audiences with staggering, high fashion costume transformations, which happen in front of our incredulous eyes in fractions of a second.”

All that may indeed be true.

But, however you describe it, the biggest cheer of their act was this: When Konstatin quickly changed from a light blue suit into an Arizona basketball jersey.

High bar

Stanford’s game notes highlight various off-court pursuits and goals of its players.

Among them: Guard Daejon Davis was a Ping Pong champion at his Boys and Girls Club, forward KZ Okpala is conversational in Igbo, one of Nigeria’s official languages, and center Josh Sharma was once a goalie in soccer, having been born to a father from India and a mother from England.

Then there’s walk-on guard Sam Beskind, who joined the Cardinal out of Catalina Foothills High School this season: His goal is to be president of the United States.

The big number

19

Straight Arizona wins over Stanford, dating back to the 2008-09 season.

Quotable

“It’s been hard to keep them out. They keep sticking their heads in the door. I think everybody when they first walk in says ‘Wow.’”

— UA athletic director Dave Heeke, on the reaction of UA athletes to the new indoor sports center.