Even though Ed Nymeyer is 85, he doesn’t need to stand erect to measure a full 6 feet 3 inches. As he stood outside a Tucson restaurant on Friday, he was immediately recognizable as a basketball player — an Arizona basketball player.
Nymeyer, Class of ’58, wore a red UA jacket and a red cap with a block A. He is one of six former Wildcats of the modern era to hold the school’s career scoring record, an evolution from Nymeyer to Ernie McCray to Bill Warner to Al Fleming to Bob Elliott to Sean Elliott.
The long-ago scoring records remain a tribute to Nymeyer’s stature in Wildcat history, but it might be that his most cherished possession is a lifetime pass to all Arizona home basketball games.
Yes, there is such a thing.
The UA discontinued the distribution of Pop McKale-inspired lifetime passes in 1959, but has continued to honor those who received what was then a lifetime-achievement award. Nymeyer believes he and 1950s teammate Bill Reeves, who left school as its career leading rebounder, are the only two living ex-Wildcats with lifetime passes to McKale Center.
Nymeyer, who went on to coach state championship basketball and volleyball teams in a Hall of Fame career at Flowing Wells High School, doesn’t sit courtside. Rather, he prefers to sit in the nosebleed seats, so that “I don’t have to get up to see over everyone during the standing ovations.”
He likes what he sees. There are many standing ovations this season and the number grew during Saturday’s 84-60 victory over Cal Baptist.
A day before Arizona improved its record to 11-0, Nymeyer asked one question about his alma mater’s basketball team: “Is Tommy Lloyd as good coach as I think he is?”
We are about to get a few more answers this week; the Wildcats play at No. 18 Tennessee on Wednesday in 25,000-seat Thompson-Boling Arena. Bring your big-boy shoes.
But you don’t need to wait until Wednesday or get a lifetime free ticket at McKale to see that Lloyd and the Wildcats are a genuine threat to win the Pac-12 and think big in March. Many of us have watched basketball at McKale for 30 years or more. Our basketball instincts have been certified by being witness to every conceivable level of good to great.
“We’re not trying to go undefeated; we know it’s not realistic, it hasn’t been done since 1976,” Lloyd said Saturday. “Playing at Tennessee is a challenge we need.”
This team, Tommy Lloyd’s first, is flying in that special space so far. What I like most is that Lloyd’s club treats every game, even against Cal Baptist, as an event, an opportunity, rather than a mid-term exam. The last few seasons at McKale came off like a 9 to 5 guy watching the clock, wondering if the day would never end.
Even when Arizona slipped and fell behind Cal Baptist 18-7 on Saturday, no fuse was blown. There was no quick timeout followed by a coaching outburst. The Wildcats played on. Lloyd saved his timeouts for crunch time, which never materialized.
What is making this season more enjoyable, spreading holiday joy through a sports community that has been joy-challenged across the last few football and basketball seasons, is that Lloyd’s fun-and-gun club and Adia Barnes’ defense-first women’s basketball team are both undefeated.
Do you realize how rare that is this deep into the season?
After due research, I discovered that no Pac-12 school has simultaneously fielded undefeated men’s and women’s basketball teams through 10 games. None have even come close. Those Stanford men’s teams of the Mike Montgomery years that opened 26-0 and 20-0 happened when Tara Vanderveer’s women’s teams were unusually average.
When Tony Bennett’s Washington State club opened 14-0 in 2007-28, the WSU women’s team finished 5-25.
UCLA? The 2016-17 Bruins opened 14-0 and their women’s teams went 8-2. Until now, over 30 years, that’s the closest any Pac-12 team has come to the double-double Barnes and Lloyd have achieved.
Appreciate this while you can. College basketball is too difficult. There are too many road games and the season lasts far too long to remain undefeated much beyond this combined 21-0 opening.
That hasn’t seemed to curb UA leading scorer Bennedict Mathurin’s outlook.
“We have plans,” he said Saturday. “Our plan is to win a national championship.”
The in-your-face reality is that Lloyd and Barnes both will encounter 24 days without a game at McKale Center. That’s historic. The men’s team doesn’t play at McKale Center from Dec. 19 to Jan. 13. Barnes’ club won’t suit up at home between Dec. 12 and Jan. 7.
To the UA’s event management staff, it will be a bit like July, except you don’t need to pump the AC. All you need to pump is the gas.
