Comments on: Emotional Livengood did not want to leave UA

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:43:47 +0000

AZGood:

The point you are trying to make (which by the way is not a bad point, just a different view from mine and others) suffers when you say that we missed out on Ferguson. Ferguson is not a JC player; he is a **** high school player, the very type of player you are ranting against. You can’t say we need to get a JC player, then in the next breath cite that Ferguson is one of those we missed out on.

I completely understand the frustration, but I’ll stand by what I said earlier, that it is too soon to push the panic button.

By: JT

JT — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:39:18 +0000

AZGood,
If the coach was established in the program and had a system that the returning players were accustom to runnung; then yes, things should be ironed out by conference play. But nobody on the team has played in this system, so look for things to gel in mid January. Parrom should help things once he gets into the rotation and has been given some time to get into game shape.

By: JT

JT — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:28:50 +0000

Fontan is a soph point gaurd at Fordam University. He was thinking about transferring at the end of last year but he went home to Puerto Rico and played for the national team there. He decided to give Fordam another chance but something happened and he left school before the season started. They fired the coach and he still did not want to come back and he ended up at SC. I don’t know if AZ even called him. It was his AAU or High School coach that said he expected Arizona to call, but all of the recruiting sites never had AZ as a school of intrest. He is a very good player though and SC will be a good team with him. I hope that O’Niel was up front with Fontan about the kind of coach that he is. He has a track record of alienating players with his demeanor on and off the court.

By: IronyAbounds

IronyAbounds — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:24:25 +0000

AzGood – you may be missing something. By next year, other than Wise being gone, all of our players will be one year older, and quite a bit more experienced. The freshman will have a full year under their belts playing against much better competition than JC level basketball. A JC point guard? Perhaps, but we can get Selby, McCallum or another high rated point guard (a true point guard, not some combo guard), I think we’ll be in fine shape. The JC route would have made the most sense in the first year, but Miller really didn’t have that choice. I think things worked out best as could be expected. I’m not as pessimistic as you are about being able to attract top level talent, although I would like to see a greater push in California.

By: AzGood!

AzGood! — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:36:40 +0000

JT, Frank and IronyAbounds, would you say that no matter the year or season, by conference play certain things must be ironed out? And that when you’re rebuilding, if you can help it, you do so not with all freshmen but with a mix of new and old players, players who’ve been there and done that together with players who don’t quite know what they’re doing or why? Olson brought in JC recruits Pete Williams and Eddie Smith to bolster the frontcourt early on and transfers Chris Mills and Brian Williams to move the program further along. It shouldn’t be beneath Miller and Arizona now to do more of the same. Valuable time is being wasted, I think, in trying to exclusively convince ***** to come here as opposed to UNC, U Conn or Michigan St.

If you stop and think about it, UA couldn’t persuade Famous to come to the great southwest, the PAC-10 rather than go to, ho-hum, South Florida, Ferguson decided on something called Florida International and his man Zeke, and Odom said adios to the Old Pueblo and howdy to Nashville and Vandy, hardly a basketball school. I say we stop spinning our wheels and get to what’s real before it’s really too late. Rebuild, win and they will come – again!

By: AzGood!

AzGood! — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:03:22 +0000

That Fontan, lutefan, is a top-notch JC PG out of some JC back east somewhere, I believe. Javier mentioned in an earlier piece SC and Arizona, and UCLA of course, where hot on his trail. Looks like O’Neill got to him before Miller and Howland could. But how with this offense that has…me…falling…a…sleep…
Zzzzz?!…

And talking of SC and all things O’Neill, I’m sitting here watching the replay of the Volunteer-Trojan game on FSN and three things grab me:

1) The SC players don’t look any happier than the Arizona players looked playing for this guy, and they’re up 15 to the 9th ranked team in the country!

2) Volunteer Prince is still just that. If he volunteers to play, well fine, but if not, like today, good luck! Look up the word slacker in the dictionary and you’re liable to find this guy’s picture right there next to the word. If not, try “underachieving” or “unfulfilled promise” or some similar words.

3) If this is the 9th ranked team in this country, what country is this? What team?

OK 4 things…

4) Thank God Livengood had the wisdom to not pursue Pearl!

By: JT

JT — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:53:05 +0000

I think everyone needs to realize that there has been a shift in the mindset of recruits the last few years. A lot of the blue chip guys are waiting to commit until the late signing period. Kids are not signing early anymore because they want to see how these programs are going and where they will fit in to the rotation. The coaches have had to adjust not only to kids committing later but kids leaving school early as well. We can’t pressure a player like Lamb, Shelby or McCullem to sign early if they don’t have the desire to do so. And filling a roster spot with a player of Zane Johnson’s caliber because you need to find a good fit will not make this team better.
I say continue to go after these recruits, show them why they would be a good fit in the program and community and then let them make the decision that they feel is the right one for them. We are going to miss on some recruits, its going to happen. Paul Pierce, Kyle Singler, the Collins twins, were all some of the misses he have had in the past. We were able to get great recruits in the past and we will be able to get great recruits in the future, we just need a little patience.

By: lutefan

lutefan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:10:55 +0000

BTW…. just reading on GoAZCats.com that Doran Lamb just visited KY. Although he says he has no leader and will be visiting AZ next month, based on his comments he really likes KY. And everyone knows Wall is gone next year.

And… some guy by the name of Fontan just committed to SC.

By: lutefan

lutefan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:05:12 +0000

Guys…. I understand what you are saying. And it was me preaching patience after SDSU. But I’m getting a little worried with our recruiting tactic/strategy. It’s one thing to say we won’t take anybody who is not AZ good. It’s another thing when those “AZ good” recruits keep shooting us down. Perhaps I am panicking. But I can’t help but wonder what happens if all these 5 star talents turn us down. Watching what SC put together in half the time Miller had, after we raided their closet, makes me wonder if we should settle more.

By: IronyAbounds

IronyAbounds — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:51:42 +0000

Wow, two games (SC v. Tenn and SDSU v. ASU) and everyone is in panic mode. We have easily played the most difficult schedule so far among Pac 10 teams. Yes, we had real problems in the two true road games, but what Pac-10 team hasn’t? We will almost certainly finish in the top half of the league, and maybe by year end will have a good shot at winning the Pac-10 tournament.

Tenn looked like they wanted to be anywhere other than playing against SC. Look at the rest of SC’s results: they are terrible. ASU has not been terribly impressive overall, and beating SDSU at home is not that great of an achievement. 26 is probably not going to happen, but lordy, what a bunch of whiny titty babies posting here.