Hansen's Notebook: Numbers tell us U of A financial crisis won't damage football, basketball

The Star's longtime columnist on the staying power of UA football and men's basketball (even amid the UA's financial crisis), a record-breaking night for Pueblo High's America Cazares, UA football recruit's pass-catching marks like no other and Adia Barnes' efforts to manage the realities of modern-day college hoops.

Greg Hansen's Notebook is presented by Rite Way Heating, Cooling & Plumbing.

Fear that UA financial crisis may wreck football, basketball unfounded

A fear that the UA's historic financial crisis will damage the school's football and men's basketball programs is unfounded.

Any attempt to diminish or "freeze" the resources — budget and compensation — of those programs would, almost overnight, sentence the Wildcats to the bottom of the Big 12 Conference and make them better suited to compete against New Mexico and Wyoming in the Mountain West Conference.

Or join exiled Oregon State and Washington State in the Pac-3.

Expect Jedd Fisch and his staff to get raises, salaries keeping them competitive with soon-to-be Big 12 rivals such as Oklahoma State and TCU.

Instead, UA president Robert Robbins last week said that the school will review the athletic department’s ticket pricing and fundraising operation. Robbins will find some favorable items.

First, Arizona’s average home football attendance made a two-year jump of 35.6%, from 34,900 in 2021 to 47,320 this past season. It’s not enough to impact the department shortfall estimated at $87 million, but there’s more to it than this season's estimated gain of about $3 million purely on football ticket sales.

Combined with the momentum of a 9-3 season, the athletic department should see increased 2024 revenue in season-ticket sales, merchandising, fundraising, corporate sponsorships and more volume from club/loge suites.

Winning sells.

Further, and more pronounced, Robbins will find that Arizona ranked a surprisingly strong No. 4 in ticket sales (all sports) and donor gifts among the Pac-12’s public schools in the 2021-22 fiscal year. Here’s the data, acquired from the U.S. Department of Education Equity in Athletics Act and Sportico’s research of each school’s finances:

• Oregon, $64 million ($24 million tickets, $40 million donors)

• Washington, $57 million ($29 million tickets, $28 million donors)

• Utah, $44 million ($15 million tickets, $29 million donors)

• Arizona, $39 million ($19 million tickets, $20 million donors)

• UCLA, $36 million ($17 million tickets, $19 million donors)

• ASU, $34 million ($14 million tickets, $20 million donors)

• Colorado, $31 million ($19 million tickets, $12 million donors)

• Cal, $23 million ($8 million tickets, $15 million donors)

• Oregon State, $19 million ($9 million tickets, $10 million donors)

• Washington State, $19 million ($9 million tickets, $10 million donors)

The UA’s total also stacks up well, No. 4 overall, against its soon-to-be Big 12 partners. Of the Big 12 public schools, Iowa State led the ‘21-22 fiscal year with $45 million in tickets-donors revenue, followed by Kansas at $44 million. That’s in Arizona’s ballpark.

One more positive development: A week before Robbins’ speech to the ABOR, the athletic department signed an agreement to partner with Altius Sports Programs, a corporate Name, Image and Likeness operation founded two years ago that will recruit, train and oversee a full-time NIL general manager for the Arizona athletic department.

The ASP program has a Tucson connection. Among its four founders is Salpointe Catholic grad John Entz, former Arizona basketball video coordinator under Lute Olson, 1990-93; Entz comes highly qualified to help his alma mater. He has served as the president of production at Fox Sports, Before that, he was a senior vice president at MLB Network .

Adding a skilled NIL general manager to Arizona’s athletic department is a must-have component of operating a competitive Power Five sports department. USC, Arizona State, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and future Big 12 partners Cincinnati, Kansas and Oklahoma State have already hired NIL general managers from Entz’s APS group.

You can’t understate the value of being competitive in NIL. Arizona should now be equipped to hold its own.

Cazares’ 59-point night makes Tucson prep hoops history

Tucson boys and girls high school basketball teams have played roughly 30,000 games dating to 1980, but Pueblo High sophomore guard America Cazares last week did something no one has ever done.

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She scored a city-record 59 points — boys and girls — in a 110-16 victory over Palo Verde. Cazares, who was Pueblo’s leading scorer (18 points) in last season’s 4A state championship game loss to Flagstaff, swished 10 3-pointers against Palo Verde. If you watch a highlight video of Cazares it takes about five seconds to realize she is legit.

Her 3-point shot is fluid and accurate, with distance to 22 feet. She dribbles well with both hands. She should challenge Salpointe junior Taliyah Henderson, who has scholarship offers from Arizona and 10 other top colleges, as the city’s leading player.

Two nights before Cazares’ epic 59-point, nine-steal game, she scored 41 against Vista Grande, with eight steals.

Cazares broke Tucson’s girls scoring record of 50 points set by Santa Rita’s Paula Pyers in 1983. She surpassed the boys city record of 58 points set in 2003 by Pueblo’s Aromeo Grigsby.

Pueblo Head coach Izzy Galindo tole me he did not pile it on against Palo Verde. He played with a junior-varsity lineup in the fourth quarter, but did put Cazares back in the game to take two more shots and break the record.

It’s early, but Cazares has already scored 345 points, putting her on pace to become the first Arizona prep basketball player, boy or girl, to reach 1,000 in a season. The girls record is 932 set by Sahuaro’s Alyssa Brown in 2020.

Come March, UA loss to Purdue will be distant memory

By the time Arizona arrives in Utah’s Huntsman Center and at Colorado's harrowing Events Center for a wicked February road trip, memories of Saturday’s 92-84 loss against Purdue will be faint.

Beyond that, imagine the difficulty of Arizona men's basketball's March trip to UCLA and USC. There are more important games to play.

As with most pre-Christmas games, even No. 1 versus No. 3 spectacles, Saturday’s was neither a make, or a break, game for the Wildcats (or Boilermakers).

Purdue has now beaten Arizona, Marquette, Tennessee, Alabama and Gonzaga. Wow. “We’ve had a great season so far," Purdue coach Matt Painter said Saturday. No kidding. But there is no currency to being No. 1 in December, as Arizona has known since it became No. 1 for the first time back in 1987.

Saturday’s game was historically special because it matched Arizona against 7-4 Zach Edey, who I believe to be of the four top bigs ever to oppose the Wildcats. It’s not a recipe for success. Here’s how it went:

• 1967. Elvin Hayes, the Big E, led No. 2 Houston to an 81-76 win before an overflow crowd at Bear Down Gym. Hayes scored 28 points and had 15 rebounds for a team that reached the Final Four.

• 1982. Hakeem Olajuwon, known as the Dream, had a 14-14 double-double with six blocked shots in a humbling 104-68 victory over Arizona. The Cougars reached the Final Four.

• 1990. Shaquille O’Neal had 29 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks as LSU beat No. 2 Arizona 92-82 in Baton Rouge. But the Wildcats had a chance for revenge a year later, beating Shaq and the Tigers 87-67 at McKale Center. What happened? Shaq fouled out in 22 minutes.

If Arizona is to get a second crack at Edey, it’ll be in March, again on a supposed neutral court. If that comes during the Final Four, it will be in Glendale — the opposite of facing Purdue Saturday in Indianapolis, an hour-plus from its campus. Play on.

Short stuff: Cats WR recruit Phelps' big-time numbers, Meyers (still) one of best golf teachers in U.S.

• Arizona is expected to sign receiver Brandon Phelps of Gilbert’s American Leadership Academy (ALA) on Wednesday’s letter-of-intent signing day. He caught a state-record 271 passes for 4,475 yards at Gilbert-ALA, with 60 touchdowns. Phelps chose Arizona over ASU and Michigan State and, on paper, rivals former Arizona All-Pac-10 receiver Bobby Wade of Phoenix Desert Vista High School, Class of 1999, as the state’s top receiving prospect of the last 20 years. Here’s some context: The most prolific prep receiver in Tucson history was Sahuaro’s Calvin Dacus, who caught 100 passes for 1,356 yards from future Cal quarterback Reggie Robertson at Sahuaro in 1999. Dacus, who signed with NAU, caught a Tucson-record 215 passes at Sahuaro, a state championship game finalist in 1999. That’s 56 fewer than Phelps. ...

• For the seventh consecutive year, Golf Magazine has named Tucson’s Susie Meyers as one of America’s 100 leading golf teachers. It’s fitting that Southern Arizona, a golf mecca with more than 25 courses, has been discovered by the golf industry. Another publication, Golf Digest, last week named Meyers and three of her Southern Arizona contemporaries — Landyn Lewis of the Randolph Golf Complex, Marvel Bernard of Country Club of Green Valley and Derek Deminsky of Forty Niner Country Club – among the “best instructors in every state." Usually that list is dominated by Phoenix golf instructors. Meyers has helped to change that oversight. She joins Tucson golf icon Dell Urich as the leading instructor in Tucson history. ...

• UA president Robert Robbins told the Arizona Board of Regents last week,that the school will not approve “non-essential" capital projects. That may delay UA baseball coach Chip Hale’s hopes to build a pitching lab at Hi Corbett Field, a keep-up-with-the-Joneses, must-have in modern college baseball. Wake Forest recently spent $7 million for a pitching lab — a player-development project directed by pitching analytics. Schools infused with enormous football money, baseball powers such as LSU, Vanderbilt, Mississippi and Florida State, already have pitching labs. ...

• Salpointe Catholic and UA grad Trevor Werbylo last year became the fourth Tucsonan ever to have full PGA Tour playing privileges, joining Sabino’s Willie Wood, Sahuaro’s Rich Barcelo and Rincon’s Michael Thompson. Werbylo played in 34 events, earned $317,247 and finished 188th in the FedEx point system. That forced Werbylo to play in the ongoing final stage of Qualifying School, one of the most fiercely contested events in sports. Through Saturday, Werbylo is one stroke out of a tie for 39th. The top five finishers earn full PGA Tour privileges in 2024. The next 40 and ties receive partial PGA Tour status and full Korn Ferry Tour privileges. That makes Sunday’s final round one of the most important of Werbylo’s career.

My two cents: Barnes working to manage realities of modern-day college hoops

Pac-12 women’s basketball is so strong that finishing sixth — behind Top 25 powers UCLA, Stanford, USC, Utah and Colorado — would be considered a triumph.

Adia Barnes’ Arizona club once seemed stacked to be near the top of that elite group. Imagine how the Wildcats might be if 2022 McDonald’s All-Americans Paris Clark (now at Virginia) and Maya Nnaji (who has withdrawn from the UA team to concentrate on academics), 3-point shooting whiz Maddie Conner (now averaging 23.7 points at undefeated TCU) and Top 25 recruit Lauren Ware (now averaging 10 points and nine rebounds at Texas A&M) had stayed on board.

Instead, Arizona is likely to struggle to avoid the bottom third of the league, mixed with ASU, Cal and the similarly slumping Oregon and OSU programs.

That’s college sports in 2023. Player movement and retention can quickly squash even the best recruiting efforts. Long-term player development has surrendered to pure commerce.

Unfortunately, no one knows how fluid and fleeting the sport has become more than Adia Barnes.