Seen & Heard: Temps rise in Jerusalem; Arizona staff pushing fluids with basketball ahead

JERUSALEM – The Arizona Wildcats held two workouts Saturday, and the one trainer Justin Kokoskie was most worried about had nothing to do with basketball or a gym.

It was the Wildcats’ nearly three-hour tour of Jerusalem’s Old City, on a day when the temperature soared into the 90s and humidity into the 40s.

Anticipating the draining day ahead, including a subsequent two-hour basketball practice, Kokoskie started handing out fluids before breakfast. And about a quarter of their bus’s cargo hold was stuffed with cases of bottled water.

“I was trying to push fluids all day,” Kokoskie said during the Wildcats’ “other” workout, a two-hour practice inside Jerusalem’s YMCA. “A lot of water. A lot of elecrolytes. I was walking around with bottles of waters and juices.”

Thanks to confusion about the day’s dress code, which called for modest clothing inside the holy sites of the Old City, some players inadvertently made it a little tougher on themselves. Teased about wearing black sweatpants in the heat, guard Jaden Bradley said he thought he was supposed to wear pants, while center Will Menaugh said he did, too, but that his sweatpants didn’t feel right.

So Menaugh wore jeans. And a black shirt.

At least Menaugh is a Tucson local, so maybe he’s got a different sort of blood that helped. In any case, it all worked well enough. The Wildcats put in their two-hour practice without any sort of cramping or hydration issues, then went back to their hotel for a two-hour break before a meeting and dinner.

“I feel good,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd. “These guys are young. They’re built for it.”

A tree is born

One of the lighter moments on the court Saturday came when graduate assistant coach Przemek Karnowski successfully defended a play under the basket. Karnowski, a 290-pound former Gonzaga standout center, had joined a team of mostly walkons who wear green jerseys while facing the rotation players.

Except Karnowski did so while wearing a red T-shirt instead of a green jersey, giving associate head coach Jack Murphy a branding idea as he celebrated with the green team.

“They call us the Christmas Tree!” Murphy said.

Maybe we have it easy

Arizona’s tour guide Saturday, Shai Zalait, took a humorous twist to one of the endless conflicts in Jerusalem’s history, this one between the Romans and Jews.

Describing himself as a secular Jew – he was working on Saturday, during the Shabbat, after all – Zalait said the Romans worked seven days a week and killed Jews who refused to work on a Sabbath rest day.

He then asked how other people can get away with actually taking two days off a week.

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“It’s a scam!” he said.

Saturday night live

While the Wildcats were told Friday night about Shabbat, when most businesses and transportation shut down between sunset Friday and about an hour after dark Saturday to allow for a rest day, its unique ending developed around them Saturday.

It was especially visible in an outside retail area near their hotel and in Jerusalem’s Center City.

The plazas and sidewalks around Jaffa Street were still mostly just after sunset. But before long a few businesses began rolling up window security screens as if it were morning and turning on the lights because it was actually nightfall.

Then everybody else did the same.

By midnight, tables at the many snack bars and restaurants were full. At an ice cream shop, closed entirely during Shabbat, the line snaked out the door. And the streets were full, again.

Bear Down Jerusalem

Among the most prominently displayed items at the first T-shirt shop the Wildcats walked past in the Old City looked both familiar and foreign.

It was a shirt with the Arizona “Block A,” and the Hebrew spelling of “University of Arizona.”

Several UA players filed into the shop for a look around, though it might also be noted that in a more subtle area of the shop, the ASU pitchfork logo could be found on another shirt. The shop also sold shirts for Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma, USC, UCLA and several other schools.

As well as one for “Jewbacca” and one encouring basketball players to “Just Jew It,” both with figures that wore Jewish hats.

Exclusive coverage of UA hoops Mideast Tour — only in the Star and at Tucson.com/Pascoe