Greg Hansen's Sunday Notebook: It's too early to tell, but Tommy Lloyd's offseason haul looks impressive

The Star's longtime columnist on: How the UA men's basketball team quickly rebuilt its roster ... Tucsonan Kiko Romero has become one of the nation's most-feared hitters ... a new addition to a UA sports family ... poor baseball attendance all over the Pac-12 ... and more.

SDSU transfer Johnson may be the glue guy UA needs

On paper, Tommy Lloyd’s impressive spring-time remake of Arizona’s 2023-24 basketball roster stands with any of the elite recruiting classes of Arizona’s last 40 years.

That’s easy to say now, as it was in 2017 when Sean Miller’s recruiting class included five-star prospects Emmanuel Akot and Deandre Ayton and four-star signees Brandon Randolph, Ira Lee and Alex Barcello.

Oops. Such is the danger of ranking basketball recruiting classes. Arizona’s Class of 2017 was a bust, even with the one-and-done Ayton becoming Pac-12 Player of the Year and the NBA’s first overall draft pick.

Best UA class of the last 40 years, start to finish? I’ll go with the Class of ’99: Jason Gardner, Gilbert Arenas, Luke Walton and Loren Woods. That’s a Final Four class, which was proven in 2001.

Ranking recruiting classes is a slippery business in the transfer portal era. How valuable is a one-year transfer in a historical context? In the case of incoming UA senior Keshad Johnson of San Diego State, my first reaction is that it’s like adding another Jud Buechler or T.J. McConnell, a backbone player whose value goes beyond numbers.

When the 6-foot 7-inch Johnson left SDSU last month, long-time Aztecs assistant coach David Velasquez put it in better perspective than any recruiting guru. Velasquez’s comments to the Athletic are memorable.

Velasquez said: “Keshad can guard every single position on the floor. He is a really good defensive rebounder. He’s capable of a lot offensively but really understands who he is — someone who shoots an incredible percentage from 15 feet and in — and gets others involved.

“He’s the glue guy you need: not really bad at anything and solid to very good at everything.

“He’s a worker; he’s an everyday guy. He’s someone you can rely on. He’s the definition of a leader: Every coach in the world is looking for a guy like him.’’

Every coach in the world is looking for a guy like him.

Arizona has been looking for a basketball player of that definition since McConnell graduated after the 2015 Elite Eight.

In most conversations about Arizona’s Class of ’23, the attention turns to ex-North Carolina guard Caleb Love and 7-foot 2-inch European center Motiejus Krivas, who, according to a few recruiting analysts, is the No. 1 European prospect in the Class of ’23.

But don’t let your expectations get out of control. Love is a volume shooter. He averaged 13.5 field goal attempts in his UNC career. That’s more than any Arizona player of the last 30 years except Michael Dickerson (15.0 in his last two seasons at UA) and Damon Stoudamire (14.6 in his final two years as a Wildcat).

Even the shoot-first Allonzo Trier only averaged 11.1 shots per game as a Wildcat. Sean Elliott? Just 13.2.

Lloyd and his staff have a considerable coaching challenge ahead, perhaps more than in his first two UA seasons. Love, for example, is a career 31.7% 3-point shooter (200 for 630), which is considerably short of Kerr Kriisa’s 35.2% (177 of 503).

Like most college basketball staffs in the transfer portal era, creating a team-first atmosphere is Job No. 1. From what we’ve seen so far, that is one of Lloyd’s strengths. Getting Keshad Johnson gives him a good start on all-important team chemistry.

Romero’s production a tribute to his perseverance

As a high school senior at Canyon del Oro in 2019, Kiko Romero split time between catching and pitching. He hit .413 with a modest five home runs and went 4-0 as a pitcher with a 1.04 ERA.

He decided his best opportunity as a collegian was to start at Central Arizona College, which isn’t to demean CAC, easily a top 10 junior-college baseball program, one that Romero helped win the 2022 national championship last season.

Now a full-time first baseman as an Arizona senior, Romero was hitting .349 with 21 home runs and a school-record 89 RBIs through Friday. It might be the single greatest statistical college season by a former Tucson high school player in history.

Until now, the top season in college history by a local player was probably Tucson High’s Ron Hassey in 1974, then a sophomore third baseman at Arizona. He hit .421 and drove in 86 runs, breaking Eddie Leon’s school record of 75. That record stood for 49 years until Romero hit two home runs in Friday’s NCAA Tournament loss to TCU.

In 2001, CDO grad Shelley Duncan hit .338 with a school-record 24 home runs and 78 RBIs for the Wildcats. But his career was abbreviated a bit when the ’01 Wildcats did not qualify for postseason play.

Hassey and Duncan, who played a combined 21 seasons in the major leagues, were both second-team ABCA All-Americans in those seasons. The 2023 ABCA All-American team, the most prestigious in college baseball since 1945, has yet to be announced. It would be a shame if it doesn’t include Romero.

Short stuff: Ex-Wildcats Myers, Burnett welcome third child

Perhaps the most celebrated Arizona Wildcat athletes to get married are Whitney Myers and Simon Burnett, both multiple NCAA individual swimming champions from 2002-06. Burnett competed for England in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and Myers was honored as the NCAA Woman of the Year in 2007.

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Last week, Whitney and Simon rejoiced at the birth of their first son, Oxford Burnett. They named him after their hometowns: Whitney came to the UA from Oxford, Ohio, and Simon from Oxford, England. Pretty cool, huh? They also have two young daughters and live in the greater Los Angeles area, where Whitney is an emergency room nurse practitioner and Simon is a swimming coach. ...

• • • 

... Before Utah senior Mariah Lopez pitched the 2023 Utes to their first Women’s College World Series softball appearance in 29 years and was named to the NFCA All-American team and a first-team All-Pac-12 pitcher, she was a rising star at Cienega High School.

In 2017 and 2018, Lopez pitched Cienega to back-to-back state championships, going 35-8 overall. She then moved to Peoria Centennial High School, and her rise on the recruiting map was stalled by COVID-19, among other things. She went just 2-1 at Centennial in 17 innings, sitting behind future Grand Canyon pitcher Sydnie Sahhar.

But Lopez persevered and was a star-level player on Tucson’s Desert Thunder and Phoenix’s Firecracker club teams, drawing interest from and getting a scholarship offer from former Utah assistant coach Cody Thompson while Pac-12 teams looked elsewhere for pitching. At Utah this year, Lopez won 23 games and had 2.23 ERA. She has one year of eligibility remaining.

Oh, could Arizona use a pitcher like her. ...

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... Four Tucson golfers have qualified to play in the final qualifying stage of the upcoming U.S. Open, to be held Monday at eight sites nationally.

Former Cienega High and Pima College All-American David Rauer will be among those playing at Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles. Catalina High School grad Gavin Cohen, who played at Arizona and Loyola Marymount, will join current Arizona sophomores Tiger Christensen and Johnny Walker in the final stage of qualifying. The UA golfers earned two of four spots in last month’s local qualifying at Sewailo Golf Club.

Salpointe Catholic and UA grad Trevor Werbylo, who has played in 21 PGA Tour events this season, earning $274,146, is scheduled to play in a U.S. Open qualifier Monday before he enters the PGA Tour’s RBC Canadian Open on Thursday.

• • • 

... Coach Fred Harvey’s UA 4x100 men’s meter relay team begins the NCAA finals Wednesday in Austin, Texas, with a school-record time of 38.82. It broke the cherished record of 38.89 set in 1990 by Michael Bates, Percy Knox, Mark Olivier and James Bullock.

How good is 38.82? In the SEC-dominated sprint events at the NCAA finals, it ranks fourth, behind LSU’s 37.90, Florida’s 37.93 and Arkansas’ 38.24. The finals are Friday night. Just reaching the final eight will be a success.

Harvey should be commended for being resourceful in putting together a four-man relay from coast to coast: Trayvion White-Austin is from Sahuaro High School; Brian Limage is from Florida; Carl Hicks is from Maryland; and James Onanubosi is from Idaho.

The 1990 relay team finished seventh overall at the NCAAsl, and the four runners went on to very successful careers. Bates played 11 years in the NFL and won an Olympic bronze medal at 200 meters. Knox became an executive at a fashion clothing and design firm, Elevee Lifestyle. Bullock became a youth counselor for the state of Arizona. And Olivier is in law enforcement, a SWAT team member, in Southern California. ...

• • • 

... During the glory days (1995-2011) of Arizona’s swimming program, Roland Schoeman was an NCAA champion at 50 meters and, overall, a 15-time All-American. Now, at 43, Schoeman is believed to be the oldest swimmer scheduled to compete in next month’s World Championships in Japan.

Schoeman, from South Africa, made his international debut by winning a bronze medal in the 2001 World Championships at the same venue in Fukuoka, where this year’s event will be held. He now lives in Phoenix.

He went on to win a gold, silver and bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics and was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.

My two cents: Pac-12 baseball attendance continues to sag

For 50 years, 1950-2000, college baseball was a Western game, a stronghold that included multiple national championships by Arizona, ASU, USC, Cal State Fullerton and Stanford.

The Pac-12 is still viewed as an elite baseball conference. Oregon State, Arizona and UCLA have won the College World Series since 2012. But community interest in Pac-12 baseball hasn't grown to match the SEC, ACC and Big 12.

Oregon State (3,588), Arizona (3,106) and ASU (3,063) are the only Western schools that rank in the top 30 in average baseball attendance this season, led by OSU’s No. 23 total. After that, it falls apart: UCLA averaged 745 fans and USC 684 this season. That’s fewer than Grand Canyon (1,339). Washington and WSU only averaged 1,234 and 1,112, respectively.

By comparison, seven SEC schools rank in the top eight in attendance, with LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State averaging over 10,000 fans per home game. In Arizona’s NCAA opener Friday against TCU at Arkansas, 10,348 tickets were sold.

That’s not Pac-12 baseball as we know it.