Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Rondae's selflessness resonates with Miller, fans

I watched as Rondae Hollis-Jefferson walked through the Tucson airport Friday morning, arriving early for a charter flight to Maui, Hawaii.

People stopped and gawked. Rondae — he’s on a first name in Tucson, isn’t he? — didn’t dodge it. He stopped. Engaged random fans. Big smiles.

“Bear Down,” he would say through the A concourse.

This is somewhat of a replay of the 1997 and 1998 seasons when UA point guard Jason Terry became the nation’s top sixth man, full of smiles, a team-first player, as Arizona won a national championship and spent much of the next season ranked No. 1.

“Rondae told me that he felt that coming off the bench was not only good for him, but good for the team,” coach Sean Miller said after his sixth man scored 19 points to help beat UC Irvine on Wednesday. “It wasn’t as if I had to sell it. It’s his greatest strength. He’s unselfish to the core.”

This is a win-win situation for Rondae and his team. He will get national recognition as the nation’s top sixth man. The NBA scouts will laud his unselfishness and elevate his stock. And he will become a feared component to all those who play Arizona.

Terry did the same in ’97 and ’98, a year before he became a consensus All-American in 1999. As a junior, in ’98, Terry attempted 294 shots. That was more than 150 behind Mike Bibby’s 450 and almost 200 behind Michael Dickerson’s 473.

But it all paid off for Terry, who was drafted No. 10 overall and has since earned $97.8 in the NBA. His production, personality and mature approach translated into the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. He outlasted Bibby, Dickerson and more celebrated UA guard Miles Simon.

The Pac-12 has produced some notable sixth men: UCLA’s Darrick Martin and Darren Collison, Stanford’s David Moseley and Nick Robinson, but until now Terry has no peer.

Rondae could change that over the next four months.

“There are a lot of these guys who will talk the talk and say ‘sacrifice,’ and beat their chest when things are going well,” Miller said. But “there aren’t a lot of kids who would come off the bench if you’re him.”

Nick Johnson was assigned to the NBA D-League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers by the Houston Rockets last week and scored a remarkable 39 points in his debut, against Bakersfield. His Arizona career high was 25. But the D-League is a grind. A day later, Johnson shot 1-for-10 afield and scored two points. He was outscored by his ex-UA teammate, Los Angeles D-Fenders point guard Josiah Turner, who scored 11.

Cienega High grad Brandon Burnett was poised to become a junior-year starter at Indiana State this year, scoring a double-double in the club’s final preseason basketball scrimmage. But he was then seriously injured in an automobile accident on a freeway near Indianapolis. He required foot surgery and is out for the season. Burnett is expected to have two seasons of eligibility remaining for the Sycamores.

Arizona’s 2013 All-Pac-12 forward Solomon Hill is establishing himself with the Indiana Pacers, scoring a game-winner at the buzzer Wednesday against Charlotte and averaging 12.1 points and 5.9 rebounds in a starting role. He has impressed the Pacers the same way he impressed Tucsonans: with a high degree of poise and maturity. “From the time we interviewed him before the draft, it was glaring that he was a very mature guy,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel told Indy reporters. “The way he carried himself was as impressive to us as anything he did on the basketball court, so to see him show a leadership role this early is not surprising to me.”

Tucson golfer Brian Prouty went to the 18th hole of the PGA Tour’s Qualifying School, second stage, one stroke from survival Friday afternoon in Murrieta, California. He had chipped in for a birdie at No. 14 to get close, and, incredibly, chipped in for another birdie from just off the green at No. 18. That means the UA and Salpointe Catholic grad advances to the final stage of Q-School Dec. 11-16 in West Palm Beach, Florida, by shooting even-par 288 over four rounds. Ex-UA All-American Ted Purdy easily qualified, at 3-under par. CDO grad David McDaniel missed advancing by seven strokes. Kevin Prouty, Brian’s brother, and his father, Tim Prouty, served as his caddies in the first two stages of Q-School.

Tucson Country Club director of golf Michael Haywood spoke to more than 100 delegates of the PGA of America last week in Indianapolis, campaigning to become Secretary of the PGA, which is a position that ascends to the President of the PGA in 2017. Haywood was one of the three finalists on Saturday’s ballot. He told The Golf Channel that his platform is to grow the game, involve more women and junior golfers, and to reduce the time it takes to play golf.

Tucson City Golf, which is now operated on a daily basis by OB Sports, reported last week that play is down 10.1 percent in the first four months of the fiscal year. Those are frightening numbers, but also reflect the general drop in golf play nationally. The Greens Committee reported that the five city courses are $802,000 over budget in those four months. Only 15,899 rounds were played in that period, compared to 18,648 last year. The confusing part is that under city management, the courses were often poorly maintained. OB Sports has clearly improved playing conditions and added a more professional feel and cleaned up the entire operation, from restrooms to restaurants. It won’t be fair to judge OB Sports’ effect for at least another year.

Cheryl Smith, the widow of Larry Smith, Arizona’s accomplished football coach from 1980-86, had the golf moment of her life last week. Playing in the Skyline Country Club Ladies’ Fall Guest tournament, Smith made a hole-in-one at the par-3 13th, using a 5-hybrid club. But what made Cheryl’s ace so notable was that about 10 minutes earlier, in the group immediately in front of Smith, Dee Dee Huffer also made a hole in one at No. 13, using a 7-wood. I wonder who bought the drinks at the 19th hole? 

Salpointe Catholic basketball coach Brian Holstrom has aggressively scheduled a 16-team Tip-Off Classic to open the boys hoops season that begins Monday and will continue at Salpointe from 3:30-8 p.m., on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Among the eight local teams in the field will be some of Tucson’s leading players: Cholla’s Jorge Carrasco, Sunnyside’s Jacob Inclan and Ironwood Ridge’s Austin Aguilar.

CDO and UA grad David Korn had the week of his coaching career for Southern Illinois-Edwardsville last week. His Cougars won the Missouri Valley Conference men’s soccer championship, then advanced to play favorite Northwestern of the Big Ten in the first round of the NCAA playoffs. Korn’s Cougars won 1-0 and now play today against the Cal Bears. Great story.

Teammates during the UA’s 2012 College World Series championship, Johnny Field and Brandon Dixon are now rivals. Their Australian Winter League baseball teams met on Thursday night in Adelaide and both batted leadoff: Dixon, now a second baseman for the Adelaide Bite, and Field, a center fielder, for the Brisbane Bandits. Dixon is hitting .222 and Field .286. Field finished the 2014 minor-league season in the Class A Florida State League, Dixon in Class A California League.

Catalina High School grad Jeremy Hawkes, a UA grad who worked part-time at the school’s sports information office under Tom Duddleston Jr., is now carrying significant weight as an Arizona State Sun Devil. Hawkes coordinates the game-day statistics for the Arizona Cardinals and has been selected to do the same for the Super Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium in February. Hawkes will prepare for that role by being the NFL’s top press box statisticians manager at the Pro Bowl.

Among those who have accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault is former UA women’s basketball player Andrea Constand. She sued Cosby in 2005 while she was the women’s basketball operations manager at Temple. The civil suit was settled out of court in 2006. Constand, who started for Arizona in 1996 during the Joan Bonvicini years, has since returned to her hometown, Toronto, and is a massage therapist.

Arizona’s visit to the Maui Invitational this week is the eighth time a UA team has played a holiday tournament in Hawaii. That’s a record for the Pac-12. UCLA has played six events in Hawaii. ASU two.

How times have changed.

Before becoming attractive enough to be invited to Hawaii, Arizona played in the 1983 Kettle Classic in Houston, where it unwittingly was paired against Houston’s Phi Slama Jama powerhouse and lost 104-63 in the opener. That was the beginning of the end for first-year coach Ben Lindsey.

A year earlier, in Fred Snowden‘s final UA season, the Wildcats accepted a berth in the Pillsbury Classic in downtown Minneapolis a few days before New Year’s. Who would willingly go there to play basketball in December?

Arizona was crushed by host Minnesota, and Snowden was forced to resign two months later.

But Lute Olson changed all of that, beginning in 1985 at the Hawaii-Pacific Classic. Since then Arizona has played in “classics” in Madison Square Garden seven times; in the Wooden Classic in Anaheim, Calif., three times; and in such prestigious (but discontinued events) as the Tournament of Champions in Charlotte, N.C.; the Great Eight in Chicago; and the Hall of Fame Classic in Springfield, Mass.

The other day, I asked UA assistant coach Damon Stoudamire about the UA’s classic showdown in the 1993 Maui Invitational, in which the Wildcats lost 93-92 on a buzzer shot to No. 5 Kentucky.

“We lost” he said, and walked away.

Nothing about sun and surf and an instant classic replayed by ESPN. “We lost.”

Arizona isn’t in Maui to get some sun this week.

Arizona State accepted a $32 million gift from an ice hockey fan last week and will establish a Division I men’s hockey team and create a women’s sport to keep in proper ratio with Title IX rules.

That sounds good now, but what happens in 10 years when the $32 million is exhausted?

It’s ironic that the cash-poor Sun Devils got all that money from a donor, but not for what it needs: money to rebuild Sun Devil Stadium and other year-to-year expenses.

Arizona had a chance to elevate its national championship club hockey team to Division I status in the mid 1980s but didn’t have the financial resources. The same happened in the ’90s when even Jim Click was involved in an attempt to create a Division I wrestling program.

Costs for a suitable facility, in additional to travel costs in a sport with almost no Western Division I opponents, can soon be crippling.

ASU’s growth in men’s sports during an era when there is almost no model for adding men’s college sports, isn’t a gamble now.

But in 2025, when the athletic administration has changed, it could all change.

Click the photo below to check out the Greg Hansen archive.