"Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

UA’s Willliams participating in James’ Skills Academy

By Javier Morales
WildcatSportsReport.com

The biggest news this week — aside from where LeBron James will play next season — is James’ skills academy in Akron, Ohio, which started Monday.

UA coach Sean Miller and his staff, however, can not watch their recruiting targets and sophomore Derrick Williams in James’ event because it is not an NCAA certified event.

PLEASE READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT WILDCATSPORTSREPORT.COM

Believes hard work will improve NBA draft status

By Anthony Gimino and Javier Morales

Since Lute Olson arrived in Tucson, the longest gap for Arizona to go without a first-round selection in the NBA draft is five years, from Olson’s start in the 1983-84 season until 1988-89. That’s when Sean Elliott and Anthony Cook were selected in the first round, the first Wildcats to be picked that high since Larry Demic was the ninth overall selection in the 1979 draft. With Derrick Williams gaining more notoriety nationally as a potential NBA talent, Sean Miller and Arizona are a safe bet to avoid that five-year drought (Jordan Hill was the ninth overall pick last year). The question is whether Williams will try to be a first-rounder next year or the year after following his junior season.

Williams, the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, has NBA on his mind, especially after Thursday’s draft. “I’m done talking about people in this draft,” Williams’ Facebook status reads. “Just gunna sit back and relax. … 365 days and I could be there … But only hard work will determine that. Let’s get it in.” Williams, who is in Chicago this weekend participating in the NIKE Amar’e Stoudemire Skills Academy for power forwards and centers, must have been itching for a chance to prove himself as being NBA worthy after watching fellow freshmen like John Wall, Derrick Favors and DeMarcus Cousins get selected among the first five picks in the NBA draft. Williams joined those guys and Kansas forward Xavier Henry, also selected in the first round Thursday, on the Sporting News College Basketball All-Freshmen Team. Before last season, Williams talked about extending his game to the perimeter as a wing player, but he was forced to play mostly as a post player because of a lack of talent and experience at that position. The fact that he is participating in the Stoudemire power forward and center camp shows that Miller and his staff want him to further develop his skills around the basket rather than work mostly on his perimeter ball-handing and shooting skills. That could partly be a result of Arizona failing to land power-forward recruits Kadeem Jack or Eloy Vargas. …

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Extra credit volunteer work therapeutic for kids and UA athletes

RELATED LINK:

• Seven former UA players are in the NBA playoffs, which is tied for second-most with Duke behind North Carolina’s 10

By Javier Morales and Anthony Gimino

Nick Foles is showing students at Rio Vista Elementary School that he is not only a winner on the football field, where he quarterbacked the UA to the Holiday Bowl. Foles is teaching the kids how to be winners as students by volunteering his time as part of a UA course that allows the college students — some of them athletes — to earn extra credit if they perform 10 hours of community service in a semester. Foles has gone well beyond the 10 hours. Earlier this week, he stayed nearly an hour after his required time at Rio Vista signing autographs and talking to the children.

“Nick Foles is a great speaker for our kids,” Rio Vista teacher Sandra Bigelow said. “He is a tremendous on-the-spot speaker. When I saw Coach (Mike) Stoops at the U of A during a basketball game, I made sure I told him how much we appreciated what Nick does for our kids. Coach Stoops seemed appreciative about it.” UA basketball players such as Derrick Williams, Jamelle Horne, Dondre Wise, Kevin Parrom and Solomon Hill joined Foles at Rio Vista this week. “They serve as guest readers, role-model readers, and they go out during recess to spend time with the kids,” Bigelow said. “Many of the kids don’t know who they are. They are amazed about seeing a 6-foot-10 player like Jordan Hill last year. They are awestruck more than anything.” The course affiliated with the volunteer program is titled “Rap, Culture and God”, and it is part of the UA’s Religious Studies department. Aside from reading to the kids and signing autographs, the UA athletes and other students plant plants for the kindergarten class, read to other classes and spend time with students in the library. “One U of A student donated $500 worth of crayons, and another one showed up for three months straight to help out,” Bigelow said. “Some of the students organize cultural events. This past Christmas, five students adopted a family whose kids go to our school. It’s a very enriching experience for the kids and the UA students. The kids love being around the athletes. Some of them are unable to go to the games, so this is the next best thing.” …

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Williams Pac-10 Frosh of the Year; Wise selected All-Pac-10

By Anthony Gimino

The Sporting News has announced its five-player All-Freshman team, and four of the names make perfect sense.

There’s Kentucky guard John Wall, the No. 1 recruit in the nation last year, according to Rivals.com. There is Kentucky center DeMarcus Cousins, the No. 2 recruit. No. 3 was forward Derrick Favors (Georgia Tech). No. 8 was guard Xavier Henry (Kansas).

Big-time, can’t-miss recruits.

2009-10 All-Pac-10 Selections

And the other very-deserving member of the Sporting News’ All-Freshman team is Arizona post player Derrick Williams, who wasn’t even on Rivals.com list of top 150 recruits. In fact, he wasn’t even on a five-player All-Williams team of prospects.

The Pac-10 released its all-conference teams Monday morning, with Williams earning Freshman of the Year honors, as well as one of 10 slots on the all-conference first team.

Arizona senior point guard Nic Wise was not on the original list released by the Pac-10, but he was indeed selected first-team all-league. (Insert personal gripe here: The league needs to agree to make some tough calls and have just a five-man first team, and then a second team and third team.)

Williams is the example of “you never know” in recruiting. He was the least heralded of Arizona’s five freshmen.

“I really didn’t know what to expect from Derrick,” UA coach Sean Miller said last week.

“It became apparent that he was very talented. He is a really soft-spoken kid. He’s a fantastic kid who wants to do well and do the things you ask him. His talent far exceeded our expectations.”

Williams averaged 15.7 points and 7.0 rebounds in the regular season, shooting 58.8 percent from the field. The honor from the Sporting News is just the beginning.

Jones’ off-balance bank shot thing of beauty for struggling Cats

RELATED LINK: Steve Rivera of TucsonCitizen.com touches on the resiliency of Arizona’s young team when it appeared down and out

By Javier Morales

Khalid Reeves and Sean Rooks — two New York City-born players — move over. The kid from Harlem, Lamont “MoMo” Jones, matched their game-winning shots with another buzzer beater at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion.

Furthermore, somewhere Salim Stoudamire is smiling, and once Mike Bibby learns what Arizona did at Stanford, he likely will think back to his first experience in the Bay area and appreciate what the young Wildcats did at Cal and Stanford this weekend.

Six years ago, it was Stoudamire who turned the ball over at Stanford, leading to Nick Robinson‘s miraculous last-second 35-foot shot that ripped the gut out of the Cats and their fans. In Arizona’s NCAA title season of 1996-97, Bibby as a freshman was swept on the road against Cal and Stanford, experiencing one of his worst games against the Cardinal with only six points. He posted only three against the Golden Bears.

This Stanford team is nowhere the same as the Cardinal teams Stoudamire and Bibby played, but then again, Arizona is unlike the Cats of old in this grind-it-out season.

The play of Jones and fellow freshman Derrick Williams added another chapter of storybook endings in this hotly contested rivalry in which 18 of the last 23 meetings have been decided by 10 points or less.

This was Reeves revisited, when he drove the length of the court in 1992 and scored at the buzzer to beat the Cardinal in Maples. Reeves hails from Queens. Jones used that big-city confidence to bank in a jumper from about 16 feet as time expired for the pivotal 71-69 victory Saturday night. Williams set up Jones’ shot by blocking an attempted layup by Jack Trotter with six seconds left.

Read the rest of this entry at TucsonCitizen.com

One-time elite programs in Pac-10 struggling

Analysis by Javier Morales

Where: Maples Pavilion (7,329), Palo Alto, Calif.

When: 5 p.m. (Tucson time)

Who’ll be there: Fox Sports Arizona will televise nationally with Dave Sitton and former UA player Corey Williams calling the action. You can also listen to Brian Jeffries and Matt Muehlebach live on the radio on the IMG College/Wildcat Radio Network (which provides free access on Yahoo! sports).

Pregame and Postgame Shows: John Schuster, Brad Allis and Rob Lantz break down the game and answer your calls at the KCUB 1290-AM feed.

Injuries/Personnel developments: UA freshman forward Kevin Parrom did not make the trip to the Bay area because of a foot injury and his availability for the last couple of weekends of the season is questionable. Stanford is more healthy when the Cardinal played in Tucson last month, with forward Andrew Zimmerman returning from a stress fracture in his foot — the same injury afflicting Parrom.

Bet you didn’t know …: The Wildcats and Cardinal generally play close games with 17 of the last 22 games decided by 10 points or less, including last month’s eight-point victory by the UA.

They said it: “He’s always there if I need him. If I’m going through something that’s trying, he’s the first one I’m going to call and talk to about it.” — Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins in reference to his mentor, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski

Arizona Scouting Report: From The Arizona Daily Star’s Bruce Pascoe

Matchups

BACKCOURT

Part of Arizona’s demise recently has been its three-point shooting defense — a strength of the team when it was 6-3 in the Pac-10. In the last two games, ASU and Cal have made 21 of 41 from three-point range (51.2 percent). The Wildcats figure to be tested again from three-point range by Drew Shiller and Jeremy Green on the perimeter. Shiller is making 40.2 percent from beyond the arc while Green is shooting at a 39.4 clip. It does not help that strong perimeter defensive player Kevin Parrom is in Tucson with a foot injury. UA coach Sean Miller said after the 95-71 loss at Cal on Thursday that some of his players “look beaten down.” The lethargic play has accounted for opponents getting open looks from three-point range. A sure sign that Stanford point guard Jarrett Mann has more scoring options than Arizona’s Nic Wise? Mann has 131 assists compared to Wise’s 90. Advantage: Stanford. The scoring potential of Green vs. Kyle Fogg or Solomon Hill is enough of a reason.

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Gimino’s offering and other information

By Anthony Gimino

Now that I’ve had time to digest Arizona’s loss to Arizona State, catch up on my Olympic curling and have a couple of cups of coffee, here are five thoughts on UA basketball:

1. Don’t blame Sean Miller just because he sat at the table when the bill was due.

Players leaving early, lost recruiting classes, two years of interim head coaches, all kinds of off-court drama, four systems in four seasons … none of this is Miller’s fault.

Amid all the uncertainty, Arizona duct-taped together NCAA Tournament seasons in each of the past two years, thanks to NBA talents such as Jerryd Bayless, Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger.

Miller has a down-the-road NBA prospect in freshman Derrick Williams, who has to play out of position right now at center.

Take a look at an 18-year span of Arizona hoops, from 1987-88 to 2004-05. Amazingly, the Wildcats were no worse than a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament in all but two of those seasons.

Could Nic Wise have started for any of those teams? No.

Kyle Fogg? Definitely not.

Kevin Parrom? He’d probably be redshirting.

Jamelle Horne? He’d be a Gumby.

Derrick Williams? Yeah, he might have started for a few of those teams, but he mostly would have had to get behind a veteran in the frontcourt rotation.

Point is, let’s not kid ourselves about the talent Miller inherited.

Please read Gimino’s four other thoughts at TucsonCitizen.com

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In case you missed it, the times have been set for Arizona’s final two home games against UCLA and USC.

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Gimino talks to former UA tight end Rob Gronkowski, who will only do bench presses and interviews at the NFL scouting combine this week.

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Former UA point guard Mustafa Shakur is making a chance to advance to the NBA more realistic with his selection to the D-League All-Star game (DailyThunder.com).

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For USC, the squirming begins as it awaits the NCAA’s rulings on its infractions with the football and men’s basketball programs (New York Times).

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Despite a historic winning season, Cal basketball is pleading for fans (San Jose Mercury News).

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Another take on Cal’s home attendance woes, which should be interesting to take note of when Arizona visits on Thursday (CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com)

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A look back in the past week of quotes (Oregonian).

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Former UA forward Chase Budinger — strange to see him wear ASU-type colors for Houston — wins the T-Mobile NBA player of the week award (TheDreamShake.com).

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