Current and former Arizona Wildcats are making news. We’ve got views.
News: The UA men’s basketball team blows out Southern Utah to get back to .500.
Michael Lev is a senior writer/columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson.com and The Wildcaster.
Views: It’s interesting — though hardly unusual — that Tommy Lloyd is still tinkering with roles and rotations.
Remember 2022-23? Arizona’s season took off after Pelle Larsson moved from the starting lineup to the sixth-man role. That happened Jan. 19.
KJ Lewis thrived coming off the bench vs. Southern Utah, playing perhaps the best all-around game of his career. His 15-point performance on 6-of-7 shooting with eight rebounds, five assists and two steals earned a career-best “game score” of 17.8, per Sports-Reference.com. Lewis as the sixth man might be the way the pieces fit together best. We’ll see.
The other notable development from that game was the spark Conrad Martinez provided off the pine. The sophomore played a career-high 15 minutes and tied his career best with four assists without committing a turnover. (He has yet to commit a turnover in 44 minutes this season.)
Arizona guard Conrad Martinez, shown vs. Old Dominion on Nov. 9, played a career-high 15 minutes vs. Southern Utah and played well, giving Tommy Lloyd another option to consider when assessing his lineup rotations.
StatBroadcast.com tracks an advanced metric called “floor%,” which it defines as “the percentage of a player’s possessions on which at least one point is scored.” Martinez clocked in at 100% vs. the Thunderbirds.
Of course, doing that against SUU is not the same as doing it vs. UCLA, Arizona’s opponent Saturday in Phoenix. Even Lloyd, who’s been Martinez’s biggest advocate, has been hesitant to give him extended minutes against anyone but mid-majors.
But amid this process of figuring out who the 2024-25 Wildcats are, it might be time for Lloyd to give Martinez some run. He’s the only pure point guard Arizona has.
News: The UA women’s basketball team loses to Grand Canyon to fall to 7-4.
Views: Someone asked me an intriguing question the other day: “How is the women’s team doing compared to the men’s team?”
My response: “The women have a better record but against lesser teams. If you’re going by the eyeball test, the men are actually better.”
Arizona coach Adia Barnes communicates with her team during the second half of the game against Grand Canyon in McKale Center on Dec. 5, 2024.
It’s been a rough stretch for Adia Barnes’ team, which began the season 5-0, including a quality win over UNLV. The Wildcats have gone 2-4 since, including losses to both in-state mid-majors, NAU and GCU. Ouch.
Barnes’ squad is still young — most of the main rotation players are sophomores or freshmen — and there’s still time for growth and maturation. The offense, in particular, needs a lot of work.
The Wildcats remain under water in assist-to-turnover ratio and it’d take a dramatic turnaround for them to rise to the surface. Arizona is averaging 12.7 assists and 19.6 turnovers per game. The latter ranks 299th nationally. The Wildcats’ 0.65 assist-to-turnover ratio ranks 15th in the 16-team Big 12.
Barnes has her share of critics, especially when it comes to coaching offense. But she hasn’t had a team with an assist-to-turnover ratio this lopsided since 2016-17, her first season as Arizona’s head coach. It’s actually impressive that the Wildcats’ record is as good as it is with an assist-to-turnover ratio that’s that bad.
News: UA junior offensive lineman Jonah Savaiinaea declares for the 2025 NFL Draft.
Views: This was an expected move by the three-year starter, who, I’m told, is a top-50 prospect for next year’s draft. He has popped up in the bottom half of the first round in many mock drafts and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he came off the board on the first night.
Savaiinaea is more likely to play guard than tackle in the NFL, but I wouldn’t bet against him. He seamlessly moved from right guard to right tackle to left tackle during his UA career. When he first moved from the right side to the left side this year, he did so without having taken any practice reps there. I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that is.
Savaiinaea probably wasn’t as effective a player as he would have been had he remained at one position. But the fact that he put the team’s needs above his own will endear him to NFL organizations.
Arizona offensive lineman Jonah Savaiinaea (71) lines up against TCU linebacker Cooper McDonald (44) during the first half of their game Nov. 23, 2024, in Fort Worth, Texas.
The other aspect of Savaiinaea’s UA career that separates him from others: He started — and was a reliable performer — from Day One. Offensive linemen typically require the longest developmental timeline. Not Big Jonah. He was plug-and-play.
Aside from his natural size — he carries 330-plus pounds on his 6-foot-5 frame with ease — and athletic ability, Savaiinaea possesses ideal makeup. I’ve yet to hear a negative word about his character or work ethic.
News: UA football signs 20 players for the class of 2025.
Views: The Wildcats undoubtedly would have placed higher in the team rankings if they hadn’t lost quarterback Robert McDaniel to UCLA. Rivals ranks Arizona’s class — high school and JC recruits only — ninth in the Big 12, while 247Sports has the UA 11th.
I have the utmost respect for my colleagues who scour the prep ranks to rate players, but I’m sure even they would concede it’s easier to grade skill-position players than linemen. A quarter of the Wildcats’ class consists of offensive linemen. They need to hit on at least two or three of them.
In the stellar class of 2022, Savaiinaea was a relative unknown from Hawaii who had minimal camp exposure because of the pandemic. He was the eighth-ranked player among Arizona’s signees that year, per 247Sports, behind Tetairoa McMillan, Rayshon Luke, Keyan Burnett, Ephesians Prysock, Sterling Lane II, Kevin Green Jr. and Jonah Coleman. That’s five skill-position players, a cornerback and an edge rusher if you’re scoring at home.
The only team ranking that truly matters anymore is what 247Sports now calls the “overall rank” — recruits plus transfers. We won’t know how that shakes out for a while. But we’re already getting an idea of who won’t be back.
Arizona linebacker Jacob Manu (5) indicates a turnover on downs after the Wildcat defense swarmed Northern Arizona running back Darvon Hubbard (23) in the first quarter on Aug. 31 at Arizona Stadium.
News: Twenty UA players (and counting) enter the transfer portal, including linebacker Jacob Manu.
Views: Nothing surprises me when it comes to the portal, but Manu putting himself out there comes close.
Every indication — as recently as this past weekend — was that Manu was going to stick around. Then he decided to bet on himself at a time when his stock isn’t exactly soaring.
Manu suffered what’s believe to be a torn ACL on Oct. 19 vs. Colorado. The typical recovery timeline is about nine months, so Manu is looking at a summer return at best.
He is an undersized linebacker — generously listed at 5-11 — whose game isn’t for everyone. Manu can be a disruptive force (17 tackles for loss in 32 career games), but he also plays out of control at times (37 career missed tackles, per Pro Football Focus).
Given his health status, a program would have to take a leap of faith to invest in Manu. He’d be an asset in any locker room, but there’s no telling when he’ll be back to form physically.
Manu also was part of the 2022 signing class. As of this writing, only eight of those 23 players remain with Arizona — and that includes McMillan, who’s certain to declare for the draft.
Players who stick with one school for the entirety of their college careers are increasingly rare these days. When the coach who recruited them leaves for another job, that effect is exacerbated.
Regardless, this feels like the end of an era that was all-too-fleeting. An all-time great recruiting class in 2022. A glorious 10-win season in ’23. A step back in ’24. Uncertainty entering ’25.
