A few notes from a tattered notebook:
What makes a mid-level basketball team like Old Dominion fly about 2,000 miles to Tucson to get beat up 102-44 at McKale Center? To its credit, ODU hasn’t often fallen into the trap of taking about $100,000 of a Top 10 team’s financial guarantee just to have its confidence crushed.
Maybe that’s because, in a space of five days in November 2007, ODU lost to No. 1 North Carolina, No. 5 Georgetown and No. 6 Louisville. The money’s good, but the damage to a team’s psyche and reputation probably isn’t worth it.
Until Saturday, ODU had played just two Top 25 teams on their home court since that five-day calamity in 2007 — No. 14 Arkansas last year and No. 25 Syracuse in 2019. Two losses.
Now the Monarchs can stuff that $100,000 or so into a safe place, do some damage control and get on with its more favorable nonconference schedule of Radford, Maryland Eastern-Shore, William & Mary and Virginia Wesleyan.
I was hopeful McKale Center would hold a moment of silence Saturday, an appreciation for two notable Wildcat basketball players who died last week. In the absence of such, let me say a few well-deserved words about Tom Sutton, age 80, Class of ’66, and Gilbert Myles, age 68, Class of ’78.
Arizona’s Gilbert Myles, left, and Bob Elliott raise their hands after a 77-72 win on the final day of the regular season on March 6, 1976. Steve Lake (15) is in the background.
Sutton, the son of a miner from Marana High School, was known as “Tall Boy” to his friends and teammates from the coach Bruce Larson years. He worked 30 years in the insurance business for former Arizona standout Bob Mueller, and later spent 15 years as a get-your-boots dirty rancher. He was my neighbor for a few years. Boy, did he love his Wildcats.
Myles was part of Fred Snowden‘s 1974 recruiting class, a slick-moving guard from Fresno, California, who averaged 12 points for the ’78 UA club. He went on to be a professor at Fresno City College, a psychologist who scored 622 points for the Wildcats. He was far more than a good basketball player.
The Big 12 had gone 26-1 against nonconference teams through Saturday afternoon, mostly against poor competition. The only loss was Baylor’s unexpected and embarrassing 101-63 collapse to Gonzaga.
The two most anticipated Big 12 games this week both involve — surprise — Arizona State.
The Sun Devils play at Gonzaga on Sunday. Let’s see if Bobby Hurley’s team can hang tough. ASU then returns to Phoenix to play Grand Canyon on Thursday on the Suns’ NBA court. That’s a big risk by ASU. Imagine being tagged as the second-best college basketball program in Phoenix.
