Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Tommy Lloyd accomplishes something not even Lute Olson could do

The Star's longtime columnist explains how Tommy Lloyd could make history Sunday, why the NCAA transfer portal is affecting Arizona and others, and why it's time to disband the IARP:

Tommy Lloyd could make history on Sunday

In Lute Olson’s distinguished coaching career at Arizona, he was somehow never selected for one of the Big Three national Coach of the Year awards. As I researched the history of the NABC Coach of the Year Award, the AP Coach of the Year Award and the Naismith Coach of the Year Award last week, I thought there must be some mistake.

But over Olson’s long career, he was honored only in 1980 as the NABC Coach of the Year. Olson guided Iowa to the Final Four that season. In 2001, after Arizona played in the national championship game — the year Olson dealt with the mid-season death of his wife, Bobbi — he received the national Coach of the Year honor from CNNSI.com. That’s it.

It reflects just how difficult it is for a man to win even one of those awards in a lifetime of coaching. Hall of Famers such as Louisville’s Denny Crum, UTEP’s Don Haskins and UNLV’s Jerry Tarkanian never received any of the Big Three coaching awards. That’s head-shaking.

No Pac-12 coach has ever won all of the Big Three in a single season. That may end Sunday. (The Naismith Award was not created until 1987, thereby eliminating Wooden).

Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd has been named winner of the 2022 NABC Coach of the Year and the AP Coach of the Year. We will learn Sunday if Lloyd wins the Naismith Coach of the Year award. It will be announced in New Orleans. Lloyd is one of four finalists, with Wisconsin’s Greg Gard, Texas Tech’s Mark Adams and Providence’s Ed Cooley.

The NABC Coach of the Year award has been won by seven sitting Pac-12 coaches dating to the award’s inception in 1959: Cal’s Pete Newell (1960); UCLA’s John Wooden (five times); Oregon State’s Ralph Miller (1981); USC’s George Raveling (1992); UCLA’s Jim Harrick (1995); Stanford’s Mike Montgomery (2004); and now Lloyd.

The AP Coach of the Year trophy has been presented to just four sitting Pac-12 coaches: Wooden, Miller, Washington State’s Tony Bennett (2007) and now Lloyd.

Sweeping the Big Three in one season is so elusive that it has not been done by Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Bob Knight or Dean Smith. But it was achieved in 2017 by Lloyd’s mentor, Mark Few, at Gonzaga.

Lloyd isn’t an it’s-all-about me type of person or coach. But if his name is called Sunday in New Orleans, he won’t be able to duck the spotlight any longer.

Adia Barnes' roster has room for growth

Five Arizona women’s basketball players have entered the NCAA Transfer Portal since season’s end. That leaves coach Adia Barnes with seven players on the 2022-23 roster. The NCAA allows each women’s team to fill 15 scholarship spaces. Barnes has four known incoming recruits for 2022-23.

This creates two thoughts: 1, Barnes is fortunate that the five players who chose to transfer — Koi Love, Anna Gret Asi, Gisela Sanchez, Netty Vonleh and Derin Erdogan — combined to start just two games. None averaged more than 4.7 points a game. And 2, Arizona’s personnel losses are nowhere near the worst in the Pac-12, which was hit hard last week.

Oregon lost three McDonald’s All-Americans: Kylee Watson, Maddie Scherr and Sydney Parrish, as well as all-conference center Nyara Sabally, who announced she will enter the WNBA Draft. Also, the Ducks lost guard Taylor Bigby, the 2020 Nevada Gatorade Player of the Year.

Oregon coach Kelly Graves downplayed the exodus of players, telling an Oregon radio program: "I don’t think there’s anything that’s stinking in the program; I think we’re set at every position."

Oregon State has lost two McDonald’s All-Americans, Kennedy Brown and Greta Kampschroeder. Colorado, which won 22 games, reached the Pac-12 Tournament semifinal game and played in the NCAA Tournament, quickly lost starters Leslia Finau and Peanut Tuitele to the transfer process, joining four Buffaloes reserves.

In all, 38 Pac-12 women’s basketball players had announced they are transferring, which, while concerning, is a reflection on the transient nature of college sports. Get used to it.

Barnes isn’t wasting time. On Wednesday, she flew to Virginia to make an in-home visit with five-star recruit Olivia McGhee, who re-opened her recruiting process after the school she committed to, Virginia, changed coaches. There was a line at McGee’s door. She was visited by coaches from Kentucky, USC and Mississippi State the day before Barnes arrived.

Here’s a perspective on the unprecedented movement in college basketball: Of the 12 players on the 2019 McDonald’s All-American women’s game, eight are no longer at their original schools. Perhaps one of the key reasons Stanford reached the ongoing Final Four is because coach Tara VanDerveer signed three of those ’19 McDonald’s All-Americans and retained all three: Haley Jones, Fran Belibi and Ashten Prechtel.

I watched Arizona’s incoming McDonald’s All-Americans in last week’s game and both point guard Paris Clark of New York and power forward Maya Nnaji of Minnesota came off as fully legit, those who can step in Barnes’ rotation immediately and keep the Wildcats in the Top 25.

Salpointe grad Yannira Acuña shines at ASU

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Through games of Friday, Arizona State senior outfielder Yannira Acuña of Salpointe Catholic led the Pac-12 in batting average (.494), on-base percentage, runs scored and doubles. If the season ended today, the ex-Lancers state champ would be strongly in the mix for Pac-12 Player of the Year. Acuña, who hit .603 for Salpointe’s 2018 state champs, was named Pac-12 Player of the Week after the Sun Devils swept the Wildcats by a combined score of 28-2 at Hillenbrand Stadium. She became the seventh player from a high school in Tucson to be named Pac-12 softball player of the week. The others: Arizona’s Lety Pineda (Desert View), honored in both 1996 and 1998; Salpointe’s Tairia Mims Flowers of UCLA, honored in 2001 and 2002; Stanford’s Sarah Beeson Anderson of Canyon del Oro, honored in 2001; Arizona’s Karissa Buchanan of Sabino, honored in 2012; Stanford’s Kayla Bonstrom of Stanford, honored in 2013; and Arizona’s Carlie Scupin of Tucson High, honored twice last season. Former Arizona pitcher Kenzie Fowler Quinn of CDO was named Pac-12 Pitcher of the Week twice in 2010, the only Tucson pitcher so honored.

Pima pitcher, HS classmate throw matching no-nos

Here’s a highlight clip ESPN might’ve missed on "SportsCenter" last week: On the afternoon of March 26, Pima College freshman lefty pitcher Darius Garcia pitched a no-hitter against Gateway Community College of Phoenix. At the same time, Yavapai College softball pitcher Emily Dix pitched a no-hitter against Pima College’s softball team. Dix and Garcia were classmates at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque. Garcia has become a top pitcher as PCC coach Ken Jacome bids for a berth in the ACCAC playoffs. Garcia was 4-2 with 49 strikeouts in 32 innings entering Saturday’s competition.

Ex-Cats completing Casino del Sol Classic

Three of the top players in recent Arizona women’s golf history — Gigi Stoll, Haley Moore and Salpointe Catholic grad Krystal Quihuis — were part of the field at the ongoing Epson Tour’s Casino del Sol Classic this weekend at the resort golf course west of Tucson. Quihuis made the cut comfortably, shooting 71-72 to open, which marked a comeback of her golf career. She is playing on a sponsor’s exemption. A year ago, Quihuis missed nine of 11 cuts and stepped away from golf for three months. "It’s a sport that I love, and it felt like the dream was slipping away," Quihuis said in an interview with Epson Tour media officials. "It was the lowest point in my life. There were times I wouldn’t get out of bed. It started when I missed cut after cut, not seeing the results that I wanted and grew and grew until I couldn’t function anymore." Quihuis, a former state champion at Salpointe, is in her fourth year on the Epson Tour — formerly the Symetra Tour. It is the golf equivalent of Triple-A baseball. 

Could Sean Miller bring James Whitford with him to Xavier?

It will be interesting to see if Sean Miller hires James Whitford to Miller’s I’m-coming-home staff at Xavier. Whitford was part of Miller’s first coaching staff at Xavier, 2005, and followed Miller to Tucson in 2009-13. I’ve always thought Whtiford was the leading assistant coach in Miller’s 12 UA seasons before leaving to become head coach at Ball State, where he went 131-148 in 10 seasons. Whitford was fired last month. It’s a lock that Miller will keep former UA assistant Danny Peters, who was part of the Xavier staff this season. Jonas Hayes, who has been the interim head coach at Xavier, leading the Musketeers to last week’s NIT championship, is also expected to be retained. Xavier should hope that the Miller of 2022 has changed, and that he'll give his assistants more of a voice than he did at Arizona.

Arizona chasing Pac-12 tennis title

Coach Clancy Shields’ No. 18-ranked Arizona men’s tennis team has put itself in position to do something it has not done in 44 years of Pac-10/12 competition: win the league championship.

In the last two weeks, Arizona has beaten college tennis blue bloods USC and Stanford, moving to 4-0 in the Pac-12, with four matches remaining. The Wildcats play Cal on Sunday at noon at the Robson Tennis Center, looking for a home sweep over Stanford-Cal for the first time in history.

Arizona’s victories Friday over No. 14 Stanford and March 20 at USC require some explanation. The Wildcats were 2-73 against Stanford before winning Friday at their campus facility. How good is Stanford? The Cardinal has won 17 NCAA championships.

To beat Stanford, Arizona’s Jonas Ziverts knocked off Arthur Fery, ranked No 2 in the nation in singles. Ziverts joined teammate Herman Hoeyeraal to win their doubles match against Stanford. Wildcat Gustaf Strom also was part of a singles-doubles sweep, joining teammate Carlos Hassey.

Two weeks earlier at USC, Arizona beat the Trojans, who have won 20 NCAA championships. Since joining the Pac-10 in 1978, Arizona was 3-65 against the Trojans. Obviously, they have never swept those two national powerhouses in the same season.

After Sunday’s match against Cal, Shields’ team has remaining conference matches against Washington, Utah and Oregon. None of those teams are ranked in the Top 25. That makes an undefeated season in the Pac-12 a realistic goal. It’s another step forward for Shields’ program, which reached the NCAA Sweet 16 a year ago and earlier this season beat then-No. 3 Texas.

My two cents: Time to disband IARP, which isn't working

Prediction: the NCAA will soon announce — "soon" is subject to a wide definition — that it will eliminate the slow-moving Independent Accountability Review Process (IARP), which is taking what seems like eons to announce penalties to basketball programs at Arizona and Kansas.

Talk about something that didn’t work.

It was announced last week that senators in Tennessee and New Jersey plan to introduce a bill that seeks to establish strict requirements to the NCAA infractions process. The bill would involve the U.S. Department of Justice and would require NCAA investigations to be completed within eight months of a school receiving a notice of an investigation.

That’s a bit better than the 4½ years it has been since the FBI began its investigation of Arizona, Kansas, Louisville, LSU and North Carolina State basketball programs. Only the NC State investigation has been completed.

NCAA president Mark Emmert last week said the IARP process is "taking far too long." Emmert said NCAA institutions need to come up with a process that has "got to be fair. It's got to be swift. And it's got to not punish the innocent."

Why couldn’t anyone have thought of that four years ago?