Monday, 9:44 a.m., done in by 24 hours of rain, wondering how people in Oregon maintain their sanity in a constant state of drizzle:
The worst is yet to come for Arizona hoops. Much worse. The sooner UA basketball fans succumb to the reality, the less likely it is people will overdose on total despair.
This is how it is going to be.
Getting swept at Cal and Stanford isn’t new but it is relatively uncommon. But getting blown out at Cal and Stanford is a new experience.
Over the previous 20 seasons, the Wildcats lost both Bay area games only in 1996-97 and 1998-99 and 2003-04. That means it avoided being swept 17 times. Amazing.
But what makes those numbers more remarkable is that in the three sweeps, they lost to Stanford teams ranked No. 3, No. 6 and No. 23. And all of them were nail-biters.
If you’ve followed UA hoops long enough, you know that the current Cal-Stanford teams are significantly flawed. Neither appears to be a Top 25 power, nor do they seem destined to light it up in the Tournament sometime in March.
Cal is above average. Stanford is OK. Not much to send a shiver through North Carolina or Duke.
With Oregon State’s stunner over USC Sunday in Corvallis, Arizona now projects as a 1-8 road team in the Pac-10, or 2-7 if things go well.
I seriously couldn’t have expected this team to play this badly.
I thought that CAL played pretty well and Arizona compounded the situation by playing terribly. I figured CAL to beat ASU.
But to lose to a team that just got trounced by 30? We’ve got too much talent to lose like we did last night. Chalk it up to us being a poor road team, but it wasn’t like we were playing in a hostile environment.
I hope Budinger gets it together. Could he end up suiting up for the CATS under a 4th coach?
This team might have some impressive individual talents (Budinger, when he’s on; Hill and Wise), but it lacks most of the elements of a good team.
No senior leadership (Onobun, where are you?)
No teammate getting in the other teammate’s face to step it up.
No bench.
Interim-status coaching staff.
The only thing this team has going for it is playing well at home or at neutral sites. Playing nine games at home in the Pac-10 is the UA’s last hope for the NCAA tournament. If the Cats can somehow go 7-2 or 6-3 at home, all they’d have to do is win three or four games on the road to get 10 Pac-10 victories and likely qualify for the NCAA tournament.
But it’s difficult to imagine this team winning ANY game on the road right now. So we’re looking at potentially a 16-14 or 15-15 season.
Dude (Hansen). Don’t write off this team yet. Not even on the road. When you go 0-8 on threes you lose. Simple as that. Cal might not lose at home this year in the Pac 10 period. Arizona is better than what they played this week in the Bay Area. I have proof. Wins over Gonzaga and Kansas are good enough for me. Plus the woulda-coulda-shoulda wins against UAB and AT Texas A&M. Could have gone either way.
After the Oregons come to Tucson, our Wildcats should be back to .500. Then you know what? They are going to split the L.A. schools.
Mark it down. UofA WILL beat UCLA at Pauley and then lose a nail biter to USC.
I know… That is only one road win if it happens. Ok so then the Cats win at ASU, The Washingtons and the Oregons.
Or. They just go 1-8 like you said and win the Pac 10 Tourney as the 9th place team.
That works too.
Budinger’s slump won’t last much longer. In fact maybe he’ll come back so hard that he’ll break Ernie McCray’s single game scoring record.
Congratulations on getting someone to respond to a blog. You had two goose eggs in your past three going into this one. But realistically, 8 comments in 4 blog postings isn’t all that great. (Gotta omit this one from the figure.) Work hard at it in practice, Greg, and you may be able to break into double-digit responses!
— Billy Bob 01/06/2009 06:40 AM #
Get off Mr. Hansen’s case, BUBBA. He’s just playing the “realism” card. Nothing more and nothing less. Albeit I believe Arizona could possibly win 3 WEAKPAC-10 road games. But no mas.
Bubbba, if you had any sense whatsoever, you’d realize for once in your life, that the Wildcat’s embarrassing display of college hoop’s, this past weekend, was a harbinger of disaster awaiting the Wildcat’s, if Coach Pennell and staff and player’s don’t get on the same page, and start playing Arizona basketball.
I wont get into anything with Guert; but the PAC-10 tourney only has 8 teams in it. Lute back as a consultant? Laughable! Before the season started I saw 13 wins for this edition of the CATS; With the ZAGS abnd Kansas I will raise it to 14. With either Dixon or Drew or Few or whomever, it will be 2010-2011 at the earliest before we can hope to have the CATS back where we have become expected to have them. Long seasons ahead!
“But what makes those numbers more remarkable is that in the three sweeps, they lost to Stanford teams ranked No. 3, No. 6 and No. 23. And all of them were nail-biters.”
Ok, Greg, and pray tell how many times was Stanford unranked when Arizona won there in ‘nail-biters’? How about losses to an unranked Stanford in Tucson? Point is you can’t use Stanford’s ranking to prove Arizona’s prior losses were justified any more than you can prove that Stanford lost for no reason to a mediocre Arizona team just as many times. If Arizona’s loss this time around to an unranked team is significant, then I suppose every school in the land (including UNC) should hang up the sneakers and quit now.
I’m not saying we need another rah-rah column, Greg, but concluding that Arizona will go 1-8 on the road only two games into the season needs to be backed up with a lot more, and a lot better data than this. Just like in investing: past experience is not an indicator of future returns.
Pac 10 Tournament now has two play-in games so all 10 teams have a chance. Remember last year? Arizona got to play Oregon St. in one of the play-in games. Washington-Cal was the other if I remember correctly. Oregon is going down!
The near — or what we thought was near — has no end!
That’s what we get for entrusting our famed —
but becoming more and more fabled every day! — basketball program to a radio play-by-play man clad in Marooned and Galled.
This one beats them all, Mackovic included.
Break open the vault now, Livengood and Shelton, and get Dixon, Calipari, Izzo, Pearl, Barnes or Kerr here as fast as humanly — no, mechanically! — possible!
I think if UA can match last year’s Pac 10 mark- 8 up 10 down- it should be considered a great success! Unfortunately, the Pac 10 will only send 4 teams at most to the tourney this year so in order to go UA will have to win the conference tourney. They better learn to play on the road. So far there are 2 different teams- the road team and the home team. Hansen’s just telling it as it is. It could get better or with an injury it could get worse. This and next are edge of your seat seasons hoping for the best, fearing the worst.
Having lived in each place for many years, I prefer Portland over Tucson weather-wise. You can have your own preference, but please quit perpetuating the blarney about constant drizzle. Not that I think anyone’s paying much attention.
I seriously couldn’t have expected this team to play this badly.
I thought that CAL played pretty well and Arizona compounded the situation by playing terribly. I figured CAL to beat ASU.
But to lose to a team that just got trounced by 30? We’ve got too much talent to lose like we did last night. Chalk it up to us being a poor road team, but it wasn’t like we were playing in a hostile environment.
I hope Budinger gets it together. Could he end up suiting up for the CATS under a 4th coach?
— CHRIS 01/05/2009 11:23 AM #
This team might have some impressive individual talents (Budinger, when he’s on; Hill and Wise), but it lacks most of the elements of a good team.
No senior leadership (Onobun, where are you?)
No teammate getting in the other teammate’s face to step it up.
No bench.
Interim-status coaching staff.
The only thing this team has going for it is playing well at home or at neutral sites. Playing nine games at home in the Pac-10 is the UA’s last hope for the NCAA tournament. If the Cats can somehow go 7-2 or 6-3 at home, all they’d have to do is win three or four games on the road to get 10 Pac-10 victories and likely qualify for the NCAA tournament.
But it’s difficult to imagine this team winning ANY game on the road right now. So we’re looking at potentially a 16-14 or 15-15 season.
— CatinLV 01/05/2009 11:44 AM #
Dude (Hansen). Don’t write off this team yet. Not even on the road. When you go 0-8 on threes you lose. Simple as that. Cal might not lose at home this year in the Pac 10 period. Arizona is better than what they played this week in the Bay Area. I have proof. Wins over Gonzaga and Kansas are good enough for me. Plus the woulda-coulda-shoulda wins against UAB and AT Texas A&M. Could have gone either way.
After the Oregons come to Tucson, our Wildcats should be back to .500. Then you know what? They are going to split the L.A. schools.
Mark it down. UofA WILL beat UCLA at Pauley and then lose a nail biter to USC.
I know… That is only one road win if it happens. Ok so then the Cats win at ASU, The Washingtons and the Oregons.
Or. They just go 1-8 like you said and win the Pac 10 Tourney as the 9th place team.
That works too.
Budinger’s slump won’t last much longer. In fact maybe he’ll come back so hard that he’ll break Ernie McCray’s single game scoring record.
Don’t give up.
— guert 01/05/2009 03:16 PM #
1 or 2 road game wins?!..cmon greg. keep a little perspective and stop the knee jerk blogs.
— dj 01/05/2009 06:07 PM #
Congratulations on getting someone to respond to a blog. You had two goose eggs in your past three going into this one. But realistically, 8 comments in 4 blog postings isn’t all that great. (Gotta omit this one from the figure.) Work hard at it in practice, Greg, and you may be able to break into double-digit responses!
— Billy Bob 01/06/2009 06:40 AM #
Get off Mr. Hansen’s case, BUBBA. He’s just playing the “realism” card. Nothing more and nothing less. Albeit I believe Arizona could possibly win 3 WEAK PAC-10 road games. But no mas.
Bubbba, if you had any sense whatsoever, you’d realize for once in your life, that the Wildcat’s embarrassing display of college hoop’s, this past weekend, was a harbinger of disaster awaiting the Wildcat’s, if Coach Pennell and staff and player’s don’t get on the same page, and start playing Arizona basketball.
— voice of bubba 01/06/2009 08:48 AM #
Time to bring Lute back as a consultant.
— guert 01/06/2009 11:43 AM #
I wont get into anything with Guert; but the PAC-10 tourney only has 8 teams in it. Lute back as a consultant? Laughable! Before the season started I saw 13 wins for this edition of the CATS; With the ZAGS abnd Kansas I will raise it to 14. With either Dixon or Drew or Few or whomever, it will be 2010-2011 at the earliest before we can hope to have the CATS back where we have become expected to have them. Long seasons ahead!
— Larry 01/06/2009 12:15 PM #
Where’d my previous post go?
Hansen, you’re a venomous, vindictive journalist. Two losses on a tough road trip indicates a 1-8 road record in the PAC-10? Please!
I’ll post a full response on my blog shortly.
http://sportscapsule.wordpress.com
— Nathan 01/06/2009 12:44 PM #
“But what makes those numbers more remarkable is that in the three sweeps, they lost to Stanford teams ranked No. 3, No. 6 and No. 23. And all of them were nail-biters.”
Ok, Greg, and pray tell how many times was Stanford unranked when Arizona won there in ‘nail-biters’? How about losses to an unranked Stanford in Tucson? Point is you can’t use Stanford’s ranking to prove Arizona’s prior losses were justified any more than you can prove that Stanford lost for no reason to a mediocre Arizona team just as many times. If Arizona’s loss this time around to an unranked team is significant, then I suppose every school in the land (including UNC) should hang up the sneakers and quit now.
I’m not saying we need another rah-rah column, Greg, but concluding that Arizona will go 1-8 on the road only two games into the season needs to be backed up with a lot more, and a lot better data than this. Just like in investing: past experience is not an indicator of future returns.
— rover fish 01/06/2009 03:06 PM #
Pac 10 Tournament now has two play-in games so all 10 teams have a chance. Remember last year? Arizona got to play Oregon St. in one of the play-in games. Washington-Cal was the other if I remember correctly. Oregon is going down!
Go ‘CATS
— guert 01/06/2009 06:00 PM #
The near — or what we thought was near — has no end!
That’s what we get for entrusting our famed — but becoming more and more fabled every day! — basketball program to a radio play-by-play man clad in Marooned and Galled.
This one beats them all, Mackovic included.
Break open the vault now, Livengood and Shelton, and get Dixon, Calipari, Izzo, Pearl, Barnes or Kerr here as fast as humanly — no, mechanically! — possible!
— Carlos 01/07/2009 10:52 PM #
I think if UA can match last year’s Pac 10 mark- 8 up 10 down- it should be considered a great success! Unfortunately, the Pac 10 will only send 4 teams at most to the tourney this year so in order to go UA will have to win the conference tourney. They better learn to play on the road. So far there are 2 different teams- the road team and the home team. Hansen’s just telling it as it is. It could get better or with an injury it could get worse. This and next are edge of your seat seasons hoping for the best, fearing the worst.
— Ron W 01/09/2009 09:30 AM #
Portland area weather link:
http://www.accuweather.com/us/or/portland/97205/forecast-15day.asp?partner=rs_oregonlive&traveler=0
Having lived in each place for many years, I prefer Portland over Tucson weather-wise. You can have your own preference, but please quit perpetuating the blarney about constant drizzle. Not that I think anyone’s paying much attention.
— Portland Catfan 01/09/2009 06:09 PM #