The Star's Greg Hansen checks in with updates on "triple-transfers" who once played at Arizona, Pima College's history of sports success, why the Tucson Marathon is poised for more success — and how Luke Walton's dismissal is more about the Kings than about him.
Terrell Brown returns to Tucson this week
The NCAA’s transfer portal doesn’t work for everybody — witness Arizona quarterback Gunner Cruz, formerly of Washington State — but it is working for Washington Huskies guard Terrell Brown far beyond expectations.
Terrell Brown
The triple-transfer from Seattle University and Arizona is leading the Huskies in scoring with 22.4 points per game, a number more than triple the his 7.3 points-per-game average at Arizona last season. Brown scored a combined 74 points in Washington’s three-games-in-three-days tournament in South Dakota last week.
Brown returns to McKale Center on Thursday as the Wildcats and Huskies open the Pac-12 season at 6:30 p.m. Taking a look at Tommy Lloyd’s player rotation, I can’t see much of a need for Brown, who surely did the right thing by returning to his home turf and becoming the UW’s go-to scorer.
The only problem is that Washington has already lost to Northern Illinois, Nevada and Wyoming and looks to be a Pac-12 bottom-feeder that could cost coach Mike Hopkins his job. For many, the transfer portal seems to be used more as a vehicle to improve personal goals than team goals, and Brown has played 92% of available minutes at UW, which is No. 25 nationally. At Arizona, he played 22 minutes per game under Sean Miller.
Good move for him.
The other triple-transfers from Arizona’s 2020-21 season — guard James Akinjo to Baylor, big man Jordan Brown to Louisiana-Lafayette and guard Jemarl Baker to Fresno State — have had mixed success at their new schools.
Brown, who averaged 19 minutes and 9.0 points per game at Arizona, is leading Louisiana with a 12.8 scoring average and 25 minutes per game. However, Louisiana lost to Marshall last week, so it doesn’t look to be a banner season for the Nevada-Arizona-Louisiana transfer.
Baker had played just two of Fresno State’s five games through Friday; he is sidelined with a knee injury. Baker averaged 4.5 points per game while active. He averaged 12 per game at Arizona before a season-ending injury last season.
Akino, a Georgetown-Arizona-Baylor transfer, isn’t the volume shooter at Baylor that he was at Arizona. Through Friday’s games, Akinjo averaged 9.7 points per game; he scored 13 at Arizona. But during Baylor’s victory over Michigan State on Friday, ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes was critical of Akinjo shooting too much. "I don’t think it’s a good thing for him to shoot so much," said Dykes. "They need him to be a pass-first guy." Either way, Akinjo was chosen the MVP of his club’s tournament on Friday.
Arizona’s other transfer from 2020-21, forward Ira Lee, is not playing at George Washington this season. He ruptured his patella tendon in preseason workouts and won’t be able to play until spring.
Like most Pac-12 schools, Arizona’s basketball program has a long roll-call of transfers the last 20 years. The most successful were clearly guards Ruben Douglas, who went to New Mexico and led the NCAA with 28.1 points per game in 2003, and guard Will Bynum, who started for a Final Four team at Georgia Tech in 2004.
Can Terrell Brown join that group? We might get an answer Thursday night at McKale.
Banners celebrate Pima's success
Over the last few years, Pima College has begun to celebrate its 50 years of sports by raising banners at the Aztecs’ basketball arena, highlighting the growing list of first-team men’s and women’s All-Americans and the many Pima teams that reached NJCAA championship games.
During last week’s celebration of coach Dave Cosgrove’s NJCAA men’s soccer national champions and coach Kendra Veliz’s runner-up finishers at the NJCAA women’s soccer finals, it became apparent that PCC does not have a rally song. No “Bear Down, Arizona.” No school song.
Dave Cosgrove
So vice-chancellor Bruce Moses started to sing “Ole, Ole, Ole” to get a crowd of about 500 involved. The first 50 years of PCC sports have a lot to celebrate. Here’s a list of those teams to reach the NJCAA finals:
1980: Men’s NJCAA cross country national champions. Coach: Jim Meikle.
1996: Women’s NJCAA tennis national champions. Coach: Jim Reffkin.
1998: Women’s NJCAA tennis national champions. Coach: Jim Reffkin.
2004: Women’s NJCAA softball champions. Coach: Stacy Iveson.
2006: Women’s NJCAA softball champions. Coach: Stacy Iveson.
2018: Men’s NJCAA soccer champions. Coach: Dave Cosgrove.
2021: Men’s NJCAA soccer champions. Coach: Dave Cosgrove.
The national runner-ups at PCC include coach Rich Alday’s 1985 baseball team; coach Roger Werbylo’s 1992 baseball team; coach Todd Holthaus’ 2011 women’s basketball team; coach Brian Peabody’s 2018 men’s basketball team; and Veliz’s 2021 women’s soccer team.
Tucson Marathon turns 50
The Tucson Marathon was known as the Arizona Admittance Day Marathon when it began in February 1969. The race began and ended at City Hall, and has since become the longest-enduring marathon in Arizona.
Now known as the Holualoa Tucson Marathon, the 50th running of the event begins Saturday morning near Oracle. The marathon hasn’t been trouble-free; it was not held in 1987, 1994 and 2020 (because of COVID-19 restrictions), but new co-race director Shane Asbury expects more than 2,000 runners on Saturday.
“I think we’re building it back to where we will soon get 4,000 runners again,’’ said Asbury, who went into business with world-class ultramarathon runner and co-director Pam Reed, a member of the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame. Reed has been race director for 20 years.
Part of the 50th anniversary celebration this week includes the return of six-time Tucson Marathon champion Soro Bassarima, a Tucson nurse/singer who won the event five times in succession, three times running barefoot. Bassarima isn’t running, but will serve as Race Ambassador.
The week’s festivities include a book-signing by five-time Olympic distance runner Abdi Abdirahman, who is scheduled to sign his recently released biography “Abdi’s World: The Black Cactus on Life, Running and Fun” at the Tucson Marathon Expo Friday from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Hilton El Conquistador Hotel.
CDO state championship baseball coaches, from left, Phil Wright, Keith Francis, Len Anderson, Roger Werbylo and Kent Winslow.
CDO celebrates state titles with reunion
Canyon del Oro High School celebrated its eight state baseball championships, 1984-2015, Friday afternoon at the Dorados baseball facility. The five men who coached those state title teams — Roger Werbylo, 1984; Phil Wright, 1994, 1997; Kent Winslow, 2000, 2002; Len Anderson, 2009; and Keith Francis, 2015 — spoke at the Alumni Day. No other Tucson prep team has won more than three state baseball titles in that period. It’s fitting that CDO has produced seven major-leaguers over those years: Jason Stanford, Colin Porter, Shelley and Chris Duncan, Ian Kinsler, Brian Anderson and Scott Hairston.
Jeff Scurran took over an 0-10 Catalina Foothills High School squad and quickly rebuilt the Falcons, winning big just as he did at CDO, Sabino, Pima College and Santa Rita.
Jeff Scurran's return isn't surprising
Even though he’s 74, Jeff Scurran’s decision to return to coaching at 0-8 Rio Rico High School didn’t surprise me. He took over an 0-10 Santa Rita team, an 0-10 Catalina Foothills team and soon coached both to the state championship game. But I thought his most daunting move was becoming the first coach at Pima College in 2001. The Aztecs stunned defending NJCAA champion Scottsdale Community College in PCC’s first-ever football game, six months after Scurran agreed to start the program.
"People say there’s only one direction you can go, but that’s not true," said Scurran. "Jedd Fisch found that out. I’m not dissing him at all. These jobs aren’t easy. It takes a village, it really does. You have to change the entire culture, and that’s not just in the school but in the community. People have to understand that sweeping change is possible, but one person doesn’t do it alone."
New Pac-12 exec has Tucson ties
As Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff reorganizes Larry Scott’s senior staff, the conference last week hired Teresa Kuehn Gould as its Senior Associate Commissioner, basically the No. 2 person in the organization. Gould rose through the ranks in Cal’s athletic department. She is married to 1980s Santa Rita High School football standout Ron Gould, who is now the running backs coach at Stanford. Ron Gould played at Oregon and has since been the head coach at UC Davis.
Ex-player starts fund to honor Rich Alday
Palo Verde High School grad and 1960s Tucson all-city baseball player Dave Bingham, the former head baseball coach at Kansas, has worked to establish the Rich Alday Scholarship Fund at Emporia State University, the alma mater of both Alday and Bingham, where both began their baseball coaching careers. Alday, who died of cancer last January, went on to become a Hall of Fame coach at Pima College and for the New Mexico Lobos before coaching Ironwood Ridge High School to a pair of state softball championships.
The Alday endowment fund quickly reached $10,000, but Bingham said it needs to reach $25,000. Those wishing to donate should contact the ESU Foundation, 1500 Highland Street, Emporia, Kansas, 66801, or phone the ESU Foundation at (855) 378-2586.
Nick Gonzales inches closer to bigs
Cienega product and New Mexico State second baseman Nick Gonzales takes a call from his agent just before being drafted seventh overall by Pittsburgh in 2020.
Cienega High School grad Nick Gonzales, the first-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2020, capped his first full season as a pro baseball player by being selected to the Arizona Fall League All-Star team last week. Gonzales, a second baseman, hit .382 for Peoria, No. 3 overall in the league of baseball ‘s top prospects. Before that, at Single-A Greensboro, Gonzales made the all-league team by hitting .302 with 18 home runs. It’s not a stretch to expect Gonzales to reach the big leagues in 2022.
Bobby DeBerry, Bill Bell honored by Hall
Among those inducted into the Arizona Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame last week in Phoenix were Sunnyside High School’s 15-time state championship coach Bobby DeBerry and ex-Palo Verde and Pueblo coach Bill Bell, who coached 37 seasons in Arizona. Bell is the father of Arizona’s 1998 All-Pac-10 linebacker Marcus Bell, who later played six seasons in the NFL. Bell moved from Tucson to St. John in the 1980s and coached St. John to a state championship.
Local ties aplenty at Salpointe Catholic
At Salpointe Catholic's crazy 45-42 5A state quarterfinal victory over Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep on Friday, some familiar faces were in the grandstands to watch their sons play for NDP. Tim Romano, an executive at a Phoenix financial firm, was an all-Tucson football player at Salpointe in 1991 and later a Salpointe assistant football coach. His son, Tommy Romano, is an all-San Tan Valley safety. Brian Imwalle, an insurance executive in Phoenix, was in the stands to watch his son, starting safety Cameron Imwalle, play for NDP. Brain Imwalle was an all-Tucson defensive back in 1987 and part of Dick Tomey’s Arizona teams from 1988-91. Imwalle and Romano both won the coveted John Glinski Award while at Salpointe, an honor annually given to a Lancer football player for academic and athletic achievement.
Kings head coach Luke Walton during the first half of an Oct. 21 game.
My two cents: Luke Walton won't be unemployed for long
An All-Pac-10 forward at Arizona in 2003, Luke Walton took on an almost impossible rebuilding job as head coach of the Sacramento Kings three years ago. The Kings haven’t been to the playoffs since 2005. When they fired Walton last week, it was the eighth coach Sacramento has fired in that period.
Walton’s coaching ability is somewhere between his Sacramento term and the season he filled in for Steve Kerr, 2015-16, at Golden State. With Kerr out with a back injury, Walton coached the Warriors to a 24-0 start and a 39-4 record as Kerr recovered.
Only 41, Walton is almost sure to get another NBA head coaching job.
Walton’s long-time assistant coach, Jesse Mermuys, a Salpointe Catholic High School grad who was part of Lute Olson’s support staff at Arizona, probably saw the impossibility of winning at Sacramento and left Walton’s staff over the summer. Mermuys, 41, who has been coaching in the NBA since 2008, is now an assistant coach with the Orlando Magic.
Coaching in the NBA isn’t unlike coaching in college football or basketball. If you’re at a bluebood franchise or big-name school, you thrive. If you coach the Sacramento Kings, you struggle.
The father of two children, ages 7 and 5, Walton is married to former Arizona volleyball standout Bre Ladd Walton. He should expect to get another shot at head coaching before long.
