"Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

Sidiki Johnson and Carson also looking good in L.A. tournament

LITANY ‘O LINKS:

• Kenny Lofton becomes the fifth former UA hoops player to advance to our Bear Down Leader competition Sweet 16, which starts Thursday
• Game time is set for Thursday’s College World Series game between Arizona and Tennessee
• The NCAA baseball tournament field will be announced Monday morning after regional sites were determined Sunday
• Josh and Kerri Pastner celebrate the birth of their first child, daughter Payten Sydney, who was born on Thursday
• Kadeem Jack is in North Carolina but not to visit the Tarheels
• Eric Bledsoe fallout could penalize Kentucky

Class of 2011 guard Nick Johnson has built some muscle over the last year and seems to be more explosive as a player (Photo by Gary Randazzo, WildcatSportsReport.com)

Gary Randazzo of WildcatSportsReport.com is in Los Angeles this weekend observing some potential UA recruits from the Class of 2011, 2012 and 2013 and he had these immediate observations of some of the recruits from Sunday’s action in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League:

• Sidiki Johnson, PF, 6-9, Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill: “Real deal. Going to be great.”
• Jahii Carson, PG, 5-11, Mesa: “Incredible hops. Pure point guard who can score whenever he wants.”
• Nick Johnson, SG, 6-3, Henderson (Nev.) Findlay Prep: “Way more explosive than I remember him to be, and has added some good muscle. Has room to grow, though. Had a chance to dunk on a guy, but backed off and ended up having his shot blocked. He needs to bring it. If he does, he’s elite.”

Please read the rest of this entry, which includes a note about Kadeem Jack, at TucsonCitizen.com. Also, look forward in the next couple days for more information provided by Randazzo, including links to videos from the EYBL.

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LINK: Pastner says Memphis scheduling home-and-home with ASU

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By Anthony Gimino and Javier Morales

Could Jesse Perry commit to Arizona on his recruiting trip this weekend?

How good is the shooting touch of potential UA recruit Jesse Perry? His reported 48 percent shooting from three-point range only tells part of the story. Despite being a 6-8 frontcourt player, he made 27 consecutive free throws with Logan (Ill.) Junior College this season. “That makes him that much more dangerous,” Logan assistant coach Kyle Smithpeters told us. “He plays with an aggressive style, which means he can draw fouls. For him to be that good of a shooter at the line really makes teams pay.” Perry is visiting the UA campus this weekend. Recruiting outsiders are giving the Wildcats the edge in landing St. Louis product. Tracy Pierson of Scout.com wrote this while analyzing Perry’s recruitment by UCLA: “UCLA got in on Perry a bit late, so there is an uphill battle. He will officially visit Arizona this weekend, and many believe he’ll verbally commit to the Wildcats.” Perry has no other known scheduled visits at this time. …

New Arizona quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo said he didn’t know about Arizona’s lack of tradition at the position until after he arrived. “You should be able to get a player here with the weather, the availability to practice all the time,” he said. “We should be able to get a good player at that position.” Yeah, like NFL good. Which hasn’t happened since 1973, when Bill Demory played a few games for the New York Jets. Scelfo will have two years to work with Nick Foles, who certainly has the size and arm to project as an NFL guy, and then it will be all about recruiting. The Wildcats have a commitment from Daxx Garman from Jones (Okla.), who will play for powerhouse Southlake (Texas) Carroll High School as a senior. Arizona also has offered Brett Hundley from Chandler, who is picking up offers at a rapid pace, including Texas Tech this week. Scelfo can’t talk specifically about recruits, but regarding UA’s quarterback history he said, “There are a couple of guys we’ve got to sign that we feel like are going to project to the next level. We have to do that.” …

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NIT LITANY O’ LINKS:

• Anthony Gimino of TucsonCitizen.com has a site for you to visit if you need an NCAA tournament fix
• Steve Rivera of TucsonCitizen.com questions: Is NIT next for the Cats?
• Texas Texas coach Pat Knight is actually looking ahead to the NIT
• South Florida anticipates an in-state opponent to start the NIT
• The Hartford Courant reports that the NIT could soothe UConn’s misery
• Former UA player and assistant coach Josh Pastner lost to Houston today as Memphis coach, which means he is likely headed to the NIT along with his alma mater

The last time Arizona played in a postseason tournament other than the NCAA tournament was in 1975, when the Cats played in something called the National Commissioner’s Invitational Tournament. Haven’t heard of it? That’s because it lasted only two years, ending with the Cats’ loss to Drake in the 1975 championship game at Louisville, Ky.

It was an eight-team postseason tournament run by the NCAA. The NCAA supposedly tried to get rid of the NIT by introducing the tournament. It was a collection of teams that came in second in their conferences. In 1974, the NCAA Tournament only invited conference champions. In 1975, when Arizona played in the NCIT, at-large teams were added to the NCAA tournament.

In terms of the NIT, Arizona has not played in that tournament since 1951, when the NIT rivaled the NCAA tournament as the premier postseason tournament in college basketball. So, really, the UA has never played in the current framework of the NIT, which is basically a consolation tournament.

By the way, to answer the headline’s question: It was Penn State over Baylor.

Please read more about Arizona’s NIT scenario at TucsonCitizen.com

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His behavior and friendship with Tarkanian questioned

By Javier Morales

Perhaps Bobby Knight should phone his good buddy Jerry Tarkanian today and call off his friendship with the former embattled UNLV coach, who built the Running Rebels program and tore it down just the same with recruiting violations.

Or Knight should call and apologize to all those former Indiana players whom he personally belittled during practices, questioning their manhood (to put it mildly), as is well documented in the book “A Season on the Brink”.

Knight criticized Kentucky coach John Calipari for affecting the integrity of the game because two of the programs Calipari has coached — Massachusetts and Memphis — have fallen under the NCAA microscope and received sanctions for violations.

This statement alone at a fund-raiser for the Indiana Hall of Fame shows how much Knight is still full of himself. Why did he find a need to take a shot at Calipari at such an event? I can understand maybe a forum on NCAA Coaching Today, but an event for the Indiana Hall of Fame? He should have taken the opportunity to talk about his integrity, since he is a legend in that state. Perhaps he did not have enough material so he went after Calipari.

Don’t get me wrong, the violations Calipari allowed to happen on his watch at UMass and Memphis are troubling.

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Hall of Fame coach talks to Memphis in locker room after win

TUCSONCITIZEN.COM LINK OF INTEREST: Gimino: Ranking the biggest home games in Arizona football history

By Anthony Gimino and Javier Morales

Lute Olson and a Memphis fan pose for this photo taken Friday before Tennessee Tech played Memphis

Former UA coach Lute Olson followed through on his promise to visit his protege Josh Pastner as he attended Memphis’ game with Tennessee Tech on Friday night. The Memphis Commercial Appeal wrote this about Olson’s visit: Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson, who brought Pastner to Arizona as a player and then hired him as an assistant coach, was in attendance Friday. Olson was in the Tigers’ locker room after the game and spoke briefly to the team. The 75-year old Olson retired from coaching in October of 2008. “This guy has 780 wins, he’s in the Hall of Fame, 24 consecutive years he took Arizona to the NCAA Tournament and from 1988-2005 had more players in the NBA and at one time than anyone,” Pastner said. “He was great. I’m glad he was here. I’ve been fortunate to learn under a guy like him.” Olson reportedly received an ovation from the Memphis fans. …

This should be interesting: Olson is staying in Memphis for the weekend and is slated to attend the Bucks-Grizzlies game Saturday night. Former UA guard Damon Stoudamire is an assistant coach with the Grizzlies. Milwaukee features former UA recruit and current NBA phenom Brandon Jennings, who Olson and Pastner recruited to Arizona. You know the rest: Jennings never qualified academically, and Olson went on a leave of absence because he was going through a heated divorce. Jennings eventually played professionally in Italy. It will be interesting to see if Olson and Jennings say their hellos. They always maintained a decent relationship. It’s just that their paths unfortunately did not cross. … Last week, we asked you to contribute questions to a Matt Minkus‘ podcast interview radioexiles.com with Memphis coach Josh Pastner. He did, indeed, fit in some of your suggestions. Was he approached by Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood during the school’s coaching search last spring? “At of all honesty, I talked to Mr. Livengood once and he let me know to hang on and another time he let me know that they were looking in another direction. I understood that. I think Mr. Livengood made a tremendous hire with Sean Miller.” Regarding Pastner’s year as an assistant under interim head coach Kevin O’Neill – when everybody was thrust into an uncomfortable situation — Pastner said of O’Neill’s style: “Everybody does it different. That is just a fact. … There is no exact way. There is no wrong way or right way. He was the head coach and I was his assistant, and as an assistant, your responsibilities and loyalties are to always back the head coach. If he wanted me to run a lap around the court, I would have done that because he was the boss man.” You can listen to the entire podcast at radioexiles.com and Minkus also started blogging this week at TucsonCitizen.com. …

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The young coach is already recruiting Bibby’s son

FRIDAY’S GAMES (Tucson times)
Memphis at Philadelphia (Iguodala), 5 p.m.
Houston (Budinger) at Atlanta (Bibby), 5:30 p.m.
Washington (Arenas) at Oklahoma City, 6 p.m.
Sacramento at Dallas (Terry), 6:30 p.m.
Portland (Bayless) at Golden State, 8:30 p.m.

FEATURED EX-CAT LINKS:

>>Lakers’ Walton has back procedure (L.A. Times)
>>Jerryd Bayless’s new blog
>>NBA & ABA players who attended the University of Arizona (Basketball-Reference.com)

Olson credits Pastner with helping Bibby start as a freshman on that title team, and the coach noticed his Wildcats looking surprised at the first meeting as the gung-ho Pastner said they would win a national title.

“After a while that just rubbed off on everybody. ‘Hey, if we work hard enough and play together as a team, who knows what we can accomplish,”’ Olson said.

Please read the rest of the article: No caffeine needed by Memphis’ energetic Pastner (SI.com)

LINE OF THE DAY:

FORMER UA PLAYERS IN THE NBA (Thru 4/14/2010)

* -- Rookie season. Bold -- Career highs

READ MORE LINKS AFTER THE JUMP

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