Bear Down Wildcats

TheCatInTheHat

Just for shits and giggles, here's Brad Brennan (Brent's brother) with one of his 2 receptions for 78 yards and a TD against Nebraska in the 1998 Holiday Bowl victory. As the story goes, Brad is the one who convinced Brent to come to Tucson, and then he became a graduate assistant for Coach Tomey. h...

TheCatInTheHat

Quite frankly, it's good to have people in hand that Brennan knows and who know his system. That said, I'd say there's probably room for improvement with what he'll be able to pay at Arizona. Here's my summary: OC/QB - Kevin McGiven (OC Oregon St/OC Utah St) WR - Eric Scott (WR Nevada/WR UCLA) OL - ...

TheCatInTheHat

Barring coming up with something like $7M a year and prying some other name coach away, this was the best possible outcome. The fast moving is commendable and necessary with the transfer portal situation. Fisch wants to have his best players and coaches for his system, and he'll be fast and aggressi...

TheCatInTheHat

No doubt Fisch strung out the contract thing and took the $9M/year in hand now versus hoping for Florida next year. For him strategically correct. While here, he said all the right things like any politician, but we were never going to keep him long-term. So we move on a year early. So be it. Too of...

TheCatInTheHat

I'm sticking this here, because it's not specific to Arizona or any specific call in a specific game. It's hard to find good people in lots of professions, and that's certainly the case for sports refs; I have no idea why anyone would want to do it. But, regardless, it's no excuse for giving any ind...

TheCatInTheHat

The "what year is it?" idea is hilarious, but small planes always scare me. Meanwhile, other than the FAA approving "door plugs" and the like on 767s, a big plane now is about like an autonomous city bus, as they've added all kinds of redundacies and protocols over the years. For contrast, I remembe...

TheCatInTheHat

The team played hard against a decent opponent, and road games are tough. (Raegen Beers shot 18 free throws, many of them in the OT periods.) But that aside, what's up with the scheduling? This is the first of FOUR straight road games, all of them on the long haul up to the PNW with their lovely wea...

TheCatInTheHat

So I watched the 60-minute version of the Alamo Bowl as a lead-in to our women's hoops game at Corvallis. Just a random observation that, over the years, rather than embracing our successes, the Pac executive leadership almost seemed annoyed by them. Whether it was officiating and scheduling in foot...

TheCatInTheHat

And so, of course, when the schedule came out, it was actually Northeastern. Boston. The Huskies. Half a mile from Fenway. Not Northwestern.

TheCatInTheHat

Arizona started out in its first 20 games (beginning in 1932) going 1-18-1 against Texas Tech. From the period where they joined the Southwest Conference (1959) and prior to Arizona joining the Pac, the record was 2-6. Long ago and far away. Then came the split in the 5 games over the most recent 45...

TheCatInTheHat

Our all-time records with Big XII teams, with the context that a number of games were played a long time ago and under very different circumstances.

TheCatInTheHat

Love the fact that with the final rankings out, the book is now closed on Pac-12 football. The judges and accountants can figure out who gets what in terms of monetary distributions, just like dealing with a dead relative's estate. So, now, the next big football calendar event is Big XII Football Me...

TheCatInTheHat

With only one game this week, it's a long wait for the roadie at WSU Saturday. But, we'll be able to watch the Cougs on Wednesday night when they play at USC. They're 10-5/1-3, with neutral court losses to Mississippi St and Santa Clara. Then, they got swept at Utah & Colorado, and split with the Or...

TheCatInTheHat

After the disappointment of the 1-point loss to Top Ten Colorado, it was great to see them bounce back and play hard in a 1-point OT win over Top Fifteen Utah. Regarding Adia and the coaching, I understand the concept of going with your best, along with avoiding game-ending late turnovers with lots ...

TheCatInTheHat

Great points on the screening issue. I'll add that it can be a bit problematic in the Pac, depending on refs who sometimes don't accept the concept of "fighting through screens." We only had two players with any kind of foul trouble at Stanford (Ballo and Love with 3 each), so maybe we've been a bit...

TheCatInTheHat

Those are pretty sweet...I like the pinstripe things around the bottom laces. Regarding the defense, I doubt Lloyd is going to bench anybody as a scapegoat, or switch to a 1-3-1 as a base or something like that. I think it's more subtle than that, in terms of positioning and certainly effort. Someti...

TheCatInTheHat

Personally, I'd be in favor of moving the line out again, to the NBA distance, as I think college players have progressed to a level where it's a little out of balance. It's kind of like the height of the pitching mound, how tight the ball is wound, and how much you test for PEDs when you've got too...

TheCatInTheHat

https://i.imgur.com/6nba9u8.jpg They're 11-2 overall and 2-0 in conference play, neither of which can we say, although with a little different strength of schedule. They split a pair with RIchmond and Florida St at Daytona. Then, they lost a rivalry game at Colorado St, playing against a former tea...

TheCatInTheHat

Sitting here in LA and watching the bowl from Tucson on Channel 5, I've got to think that can't hurt our recruiting. Not much of a crowd, but nobody really expects that for minor bowls these days. It looks like a beautiful day there (same here), and the drone and other visuals of Tucson, the surroun...

TheCatInTheHat

Yeah, they list him at 5-11 195, but no way. And OU really brought the heat and maybe thought they could knock him out of the game. So, what have we got here? Smart, accurate, resourceful, resilient...and, oh yeah...tough.

TheCatInTheHat

Ranking wins is difficult, as there's a fairly complex combination of factors, and it's subjective regarding how much to weight each factor. From my perspective, a win in a reasonably significant bowl game (the definition of which has been shifting sand for many years) is generally more memorable to...

TheCatInTheHat

It's actually funny that after two straight years of the LA media pre-season hyping both USC and UCLA as national title contenders, when they finished up with a combined 17 losses over those years between them, suddenly beating 6-loss Boise St in LA in front of 32K and beating 4-loss Louisville in P...

TheCatInTheHat

This is a six minute discussion about the Alamo Bowl matchup. Nothing earth-shaking...I just found it and certainly don't follow them. But, interesting to see the viewpoint of outsiders with no vested interest. (NOTE: After six minutes, there's nothing more than a commercial for a sports betting sit...

TheCatInTheHat

Whenever concern about wishing the conference was stronger comes up, I like to bring up Tarkanian's UNLV teams in the Big West, and Wooden's teams in the Pac-8. Both leagues were generally miserable and offered little competition. Until the end of Wooden's run, USC got them a couple of times, then l...

TheCatInTheHat

AZCatGirl wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 10:12 pm DWill will be at the game Saturday!

DWill with the epic dunkathon game against Duke is up there in Wildcat lore. (So was nailing them this year at Cameron with Rat Face in the front row.)

TheCatInTheHat

#14 FAU is 9-2 on the season. In terms of notable games, they beat Texas A&M, Butler, and Virginia Tech at the Disney World complex. They were upset at home early in the season by Bryant, and they lost to Illinois at Madison Square Garden. They have a 7-1 Russian center with 20 blocks who gives them...

TheCatInTheHat

I will never forget tv footage showing their A.D throwing a fit on the sideline, when Darryl Lewis had a pick 6 at the rose bowl Ironically enough, just seconds before D-Lew's game changer, when UCLA was marching down the field and all looked lost, there was some play that was just too much for me,...

TheCatInTheHat

I think coaches err on the side of worrying about messing with a player's head too much on free throws. if a FT shooter's mechanics are bad, it should be addressed. If you just have somebody work with him and say "no" and take away the bad superfluous stuff, stripping it down to basics has to get yo...

TheCatInTheHat

https://www.normantranscript.com/sports ... a3b2e.html

TheCatInTheHat

Okay; my bad. There was a lot of discussion about who would play QB for them while it was well-known that he was going to enter the transfer portal and go to Oregon. I didn't see his verbal to Oregon on X on December 9, and certainly don't know all the nuances of the NCAA's 2023 rules on timing, sub...

TheCatInTheHat

It feels like we're done with Pac-12 football for the schools that didn't make a bowl game. But, just like you watch what the rest of the league's teams do in non-conference games and against each other, the traditional tendency is to watch how they do in bowl games. I don't care how they represent ...

TheCatInTheHat

Who knows...maybe Brent Venables will play Dillon Gabriel, but I really doubt it. If they lost and Gabriel seemed tentative, there'd be a lot of heat that he'd checked out. Meanwhile, everything I've seen makes it a foregone conclusion that "The Jackson Arnold Era" is set to begin with the Alamo Bow...

TheCatInTheHat

Bama's 6-4. Nate Oats has been their coach since 2019, and after moving to Tuscaloosa from Buffalo, he's got them launching threes a la Bobby Hurley. They're a high-scoring team, but that's weighted by big scores against some of their lesser opponents. They lost at Wake Forest and at home to Clemson...

TheCatInTheHat

I may have related this somewhere way earlier in this thread. But, when Kansas last played at McKale (2008), there was a young couple who were KU fans who sat just in front of us. The normal season ticket holder for those seats sometimes liked to cash-in on StubHub. Now I'll certainly complain about...

TheCatInTheHat

I meant to mention that Adam Miller, their top recruit/transfer portal guy (a guard from LSU), made his unexpected debut against TCU over the weekend. The NCAA had denied an appeal on some aspect of his eligibility. But, there was some unrelated court case somewhere with an injunction against the NC...

TheCatInTheHat

We lost to a #3 team with possibly the biggest matchup problem in the country on their virtual home court 1500 miles away by under double digits. That's not sugar-coating, it's just data. Toughest game on our schedule. And we played poorly on our own, versus being forced into it. As somebody pointed...

TheCatInTheHat

Some random musings, some of which may be off-base. I've enjoyed seeing a successful Arizona women's hoops team and would like to see that continue. Adia seems like a charismatic recruiter type, rather than a big Xs and Os type who can diagnose and fix lots of little things. How much have the euro c...

TheCatInTheHat

It's great recognition, and I love it. But, it's not like we're going undefeated this year. We want to stack up absolutely every last win that we can. No more patsies left, so we've got Purdue, Alabama, and FAU on neutral courts before starting Pac-12 play. Hard to say when we might have a bad shoot...

TheCatInTheHat

There's a discussion on another thread about USC and other programs throwing big money around for assistants and trying to hang onto good people in the face of that. One thing I'm curious about is how much impact people think Duane Akina had this year. Overall, it was Johnny Nansen's defense that im...

TheCatInTheHat

If one of the truly top 10 or 15 (over time) programs comes knocking for somebody, there won't be much we can do if an assistant coach wants to go for bigger money, what they consider more opportunity, or whatever. Hopefully, we've sweetened the pot sufficiently that nobody feels neglected or abused...

TheCatInTheHat

Well, the guy that denied us a sweep of the votes went to Indiana and now covers them (and Purdue.) Maybe he didn't like what we did to his Hoosiers last season. Or maybe he assumes Purdue will win with the virtual home court in Indianapolis and he can be the prescient one. Whatever. Meanwhile, as i...

TheCatInTheHat

Meanwhile, we've got a team at a place with pretty high expectations pretty much blowing those expectations out of the water. We lost a few people after last season, yet here we are clearly a better team. Took the kids to a major theme park yesterday, and despite the 11 1/2 miles we put in, it was g...

TheCatInTheHat

IMNSHO, the best response to a troll when he/she/it/they are publicly, egregiously and embarrassingly wrong, is to merely let their turd post lay in its fetid, decaying solitude.... ...pointing out the obvious error of the troll's content, the poverty of their insight, or the pathos of their intent...

TheCatInTheHat

You can make a case that there's a cohort with Arizona, ASU, Utah, BYU, and Colorado. 4 were together in the WAC, 4 were together in the Pac, and 5 will be together in the Big XII. Not big enough to be a conference, but it makes the transition easier when you've got familiar faces, if not friends, w...

TheCatInTheHat

They've only lost two games, but the bad news is that those are the two lowest-rated of the 14 Top 30 games on our schedule. If anybody's looking for silver linings, we haven't played any of them at home yet, and we'll get 7 cracks at that. The Pac-12 looks tough, and I wouldn't venture a guess as t...

TheCatInTheHat

We'll be a little short-handed, but not like their situation missing a 42 TD QB. I'm sure their backup is exceptional, but the experience factor is significant. I kind of doubt from a team mentality standpoint they'll circle the wagons and say "we'll show 'em" against Arizona in an Alamo Bowl. More ...

TheCatInTheHat

Ronnie Veal was definitely a better runner than passer. Chuck Levy made Veal look like Joe Montana. Only had one pass attempt which was incomplete during a win against Oregon in 1993. Tomey games like that brought in Mackovic since the fans really wanted an offensive minded coach. LOL...very true! ...

TheCatInTheHat

That was an interesting year. Early on, we take on #6 Oklahoma with their star RB Mike Gaddis... https://i.imgur.com/ALSFwIH.jpg As noted, we won the battle of the field goals 6-3, behind a pretty incredible defensive effort. (I think the Star's headline was just: PFAFF!!!) We beat up on ASU in Temp...

TheCatInTheHat

(That's very cool, IrishAzCat!) Gotta say the NCAA could do a better job with the bowl announcements. First, you had ESPN dragging everything out for their captive audience to fill a three=hour panel discussion show. I was outta there after a half hour. Then, it's trickle out the info bowl by bowl, ...

TheCatInTheHat

Well, other than the NY6 games with whatever contractual pool amount of payout is involved, we seem to have landed in the best available slot. Money aside, the NY6 other than the Rose & Sugar don't mean much beyond "previews of coming attractions" for the expanded playoff next year. But after that, ...

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