Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Transfers often find out grass isn't greener on other side

The Star's longtime columnist on how many players who transfer away from Arizona don't find what they're looking for, how shortstop Mason White is tearing it up for the UA baseball team and how the UA women's basketball program made a bid to hire legendary coach Tara VanDeerver in the 1980s.

Roster turnover now the norm during transfer portal era

In an almost poetic piece of men's basketball mathematics, Arizona has had exactly 46 players transfer in its 46 Pac-12 seasons. There’s no mystery why most of those 46 transferred: a search for more playing time. More shots. More points.

The transfer business has added another component: the search for more money. For better or worse, that is the immediate future of college basketball. That’s partly why a UA season-record five Wildcats have entered the transfer portal this spring.

Only two ex-Wildcats transferred while averaging double-figures at UA; James Akinjo to Baylor, and now Oumar Ballo. How did it work out? Akinjo finished the 2023-24 season playing for the NBA G League Wisconsin Herd, averaging 9.1 points.

I evaluated all 46 transfers and came to this conclusion: exactly 23 of the 46 made a good move by leaving Arizona, gaining more minutes and more points. Here’s the list, in chronological order, 1978-2024.

1980: Michael Zeno: Went from an average of 11 minutes played at Arizona to a high of 28 at Long Beach State.

1980: George Hawthorne: Went from 24 minutes per game at UA to 15.5 at Cal-Fullerton.

1980: Dave Mosebar: Went from 16 minutes at UA down to an average of 11 minutes at Fresno State.

1981: Leon Wood: Went from 4.4 points per game at UA to a high of 24 points a game at Cal-Fullerton and to the NBA.

1982: Jeff Collins: Went from 14.5 points per game at UA to a high of 11.2 at UNLV.

1985: Rolf Jacobs: Went from six minutes per game at UA to a high of 11 at Long Beach State.

1985: Michael Tait: Went from 7.1 points at Arizona to 12.9 at Clemson.

1986: Eric Cooper: Went from 2.8 points at Arizona to 18.7 at UTSA.

1986: Bruce Wheatley: Went from four minutes per game at UA to 29 minutes at UTSA.

1989: Ron Curry: Went from 1.7 points per game at UA to 14.4 at Marquette.

1989: Mark Georgeson: Went from 0.7 points at UA to a high of 4.1 at Pepperdine.

1991: Casey Schmidt: Went from seven minutes at UA to 36 minutes a game at Valparaiso.

1992: Sean Allen: Went from 2.1 points at UA to 16.8 at Southern Utah.

1993: Etdrick Bohannon: Went from 2.6 points at UA to a high of 3.9 at Tennessee.

1994: Jarvis Kelly: Went from 2.5 points at Arizona to 14.8 at Rice.

1998: Quynn Tebbs: Went from 2.3 points at Arizona to 5.4 at Weber State.

1999: Ruben Douglas: Went from 8.0 points at Arizona to 28 at New Mexico, leading the NCAA.

1999: Traves Wilson: Went from 15 minutes per game at UA to a high of 20 minutes at Illinois State.

2001: Travis Hanour: Went from 3.1 points per game at Arizona to a high of 3.2 at San Diego State.

2002: Will Bynum: Went from 6.4 points at Arizona to the Final Four at Georgia Tech, averaging 12.5 points, and a career in the NBA.

2002: Dennis Latimore: Went from 3.2 points at UA to 7.1 points at Notre Dame.

2005: Jesus Verdugo: Went from five minutes at UA to 33 minutes per game at South Florida.

2005: Zane Johnson: Went from 4.6 points at Arizona to 16.4 at Hawaii.

2006: J.P. Prince: Went from 2.2 points at Arizona to 9.9 at Tennessee.

2008: Lucas Laval-Perry: Went from 10 minutes at Arizona to 23 at Oakland.

2009: Garland Judkins: Went from 2.4 points at Arizona to 6.4 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

2012: Angelo Chol: Went from 12 minutes a game at UA to a high of 13.7 at San Diego State.

2012: Sidiki Johnson: Went from 0.3 points at Arizona to 3.7 at Providence.

2015: Craig Victor: Went from 3.1 points at Arizona to 11.5 at LSU.

2016: Justin Simon: Went from seven minutes per game at UA to a high of 35 minutes at St. John’s.

2019: Emmanuel Akot: Went from 3.8 points at Arizona to 10.8 at Boise State.

2019: Alex Barcello: Went from 3.3 points at Arizona to 16.9 at BYU and the all-conference team.

2020: Devonaire Doutrive: Went from 3.1 points at UA to 9.1 at Boise State.

2021: Jemarl Baker: Went from 29 minutes at Arizona to 32 at Fresno State.

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2021: James Akinjo: Went from 15.6 points at Arizona to 13.2 at Baylor.

2021: Jordan Brown: Went from 9.4 points at Arizona to 15.3 at Louisiana.

2021: Terrrell Brown: Went from 7.3 points at Arizona to a Pac-12 high 21.7 at Washington.

2021: Ira Lee: Went from 10.4 minutes at Arizona and transferred to Georgetown. He suffered a knee injury and didn’t play again.

2022: Shane Nowell: Went from 3.5 minutes per game at Arizona to a high of 16.7 at UNLV.

2023: Adama Bal: Went from 2.5 points at Arizona to 14.4 at Santa Clara.

2023: Kerr Kriisa: Went from 9.9 points at Arizona to 11.0 at West Virginia.

2024: Five Wildcats have announced their intention to transfer: Ballo, Kylan Boswell, Dylan Anderson, Filip Borovicanin and Paulius Murauskas. That makes 46. I don’t think any will trade up, but that’s not the point in the transfer game. It’s about increased individual production. And, for those like Ballo, more money.

The five transfers who benefited most from leaving Arizona were probably Wood, Bynum, Douglas, Barcello and Curry.

I’m not complaining about the increase in transfers. Sadly, that’s today’s college basketball. But I do have one critique: It has been reported that Ballo will visit five schools: Indiana, Louisville, North Carolina, Kansas State and Florida.

Seriously? Sometimes, the excesses of college sports are utterly ridiculous.

White’s sophomore season one for the books so far

If the Pac-12 had a mid-season baseball All-Star game like MLB, Arizona sophomore Mason White would surely be its starting shortstop. Through Friday he was second in the Pac-12 with 13 home runs and tied for first with 45 RBIs. Batting average: .310. His only challenger would be Utah junior Core Jackson, who is hitting .341 with two homers and 24 RBIs.

The Salpointe Catholic High School product is bidding to become Arizona’s seventh All-Pac-12 shortstop in school history, joining Bobby Ralston, Keoni DeRenne, Salpointe’s Brad Hassey, Alex Mejia, Kevin Newman and Nic McClaughry.

More intriguing is that White could become just the seventh Wildcat to hit 20 home runs in a season, a club dominated by Tucsonans Shelley Duncan, Kiko Romero and C.J. Zeigler of CDO and George Arias of Pueblo. The others: Jason Thompson and Chase Davis.

According to my research, even at mid-season White has hit more home runs than any shortstop in UA history. Until this season, the most was eight by Tucson High grad Eddie Leon in 1966 and 1967.

VanDerveer could’ve been a Wildcat

In the spring of 1984, former Arizona associate athletic director Bill Belknap, then the AD at Idaho, phoned his old school and recommended to senior associate AD Mary Roby that the UA hire a young Ohio State head coach to fill the UA’s women’s basketball coaching vacancy.

That would be Tara VanDerveer, who got her start as a head coach in 1978 under Belknap at Idaho.

VanDerveer flew to Tucson for a job interview. In a 1997 interview, she told me “I didn’t like what I saw,’’ and declined the position. No wonder. Arizona was coming off 0-12, 2-12 and 1-13 seasons in the old Western Collegiate Conference.

VanDereveer retired from Stanford last week with more coaching victories, 1,216, than anyone in NCAA Division I men’s or women’s basketball history — and a 75-11 record against the school that tried to hire her 40 years ago.

Short stuff: Jason Hisey hits 400 wins, Book Richardson gets another chance

• Canyon del Oro baseball coach Jason Hisey last week won his 400th and 401st games as a high school coach at CDO, Ironwood Ridge and Catalina Foothills. That puts him in historic company. Former Tucson High coach Oscar Romero won 488 games for the Badgers, the late Hal Eustice coached Sahuaro High to 436 victories. The next to join the 400 Club is likely to be Salpointe's Danny Preble, who has won 326 games for the Lancers. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Hisey and Preble met in the Class 4A state championship game next month.

• It’s good to see ex-Arizona assistant basketball coach Book Richardson get a new coaching opportunity. He accepted a job as head coach of the new PDI Prep School in Urbana, Ohio, last week, leaving his long-time job with the New York Gauchos, an AAU club in the Bronx. Richardson has come a long way from the 2019 spring morning when I had breakfast with him and his surrogate father, Tucsonan Bob Herrington, a week before Book left Tucson to spend 90 days in prison for breaking NCAA recruiting rules.. He told me he had been contemplating suicide for months and had gone as far as to put the barrel of a loaded gun in his mouth one night. He’s a good man who deserves a second chance at a good life.

• ASU unveiled a statue of former Sun Devil baseball coach Bobby Winkles on Friday night at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Winkles, who died five years ago, coached ASU to three NCAA championships from 1959-71. When he retired, Arizona hired Jerry Kindall to coach the Wildcats; he then won three NCAA championships between 1974-86. The Sun Devils paid for Winkles’ statue from a fund established by ex-ASU baseball players. Arizona should take note and follow a similar route to erect statues of Kindall and softball coach Mike Candrea.

Fittingly, Kindall and Winkles were both inducted into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday in Scottsdale, a rare Tucson-heavy class that included five-time Olympic distance runner Abdi Abdirahman, ex-UA basketball player Richard Jefferson and Arizona's 1980 NCAA baseball player of the year Terry Francona. It was a big week for Francona, the former Red Sox manager; on Tuesday, he was honored at Fenway Park in Boston when the Red Sox celebrated the club’s 2004 World Series championship anniversary.

My two cents: State's top honor doesn't always equal success

When UA redshirt freshman Dylan Anderson recently announced he is transferring from Tommy Lloyd’s club, I was reminded that Anderson was Arizona’s 2021 and 2022 Gatorade Player of the Year.

That award hasn’t often translated into a high level of college success.

Since 2000, Arizona’s annual Gatorade award has produced just two first-round NBA draft picks and full-time NBA players: Arizona’s Channing Frye and Jerryd Bayless.

Former Arizona point guard Nico Mannion won the award in 2018 and 2019. He is now averaging 6.1 points for Baskonia-Vitoria in Italy’s EuroLeague. Former UA/BYU point guard Alex Barcello, who won the Gatorade award in 2015 and 2017, is now playing for Gipuzkua, a second-level EuroLeague team in Spain.

The other winners from 2000-22 included two ASU players, Corey Hawkins, who later transferred to UC-Davis, and Taylor Rohde, who later transferred to Alaska-Anchorage.

One of the most successful Arizona Gatorade winners was Amphitheater’s Tim Derksen, 2012, who played San Francisco and then spent seven seasons in the EuroLeague before retiring last fall. Derksen is the only Tucsonan to win the Gatorade award from 2000-24.

This year’s winner was Gilbert Perry’s Koi Peat, who also won the award as a sophomore in 2023. One of Arizona’s leading recruiting targets, Peat is positioned to be Arizona’’s first three-time winner of the award in 2025.

Peat is surely the top prospect from Arizona since Bayless left St. Mary’s High School in 2006.