Bear Down Wildcats

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, ...

TheCatInTheHat

Don't mean to jump the gun. But if Fisch says he's expecting Oklahoma, and we stayed ranked 15 in the CFP looking at the 12 NY6 slots, the Alamo pays more than the Holiday, which pays more than the Sun, which pays more than the Vegas Bowl, and we own the pertinent conference tie-breakers, it's hard ...

TheCatInTheHat

Hopefully we're past the point of listening to some prof who rides his bike down Mountain to his little funky office, works on a book, lectures on a topic of debatable value, and brings in no money (i.e.: Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers ) complaining that Taylor Swift and all athletes and coaches mak...

TheCatInTheHat

...Fuck ASU.

TheCatInTheHat

I think the players know what to expect. ASU has no choice but to try and turn it into a one-game season. I like our team in all phases, including their determination, and the way they've improved over the course of the season. ASU can bounce off the walls at kickoff, wag their tongues, and run Stat...

TheCatInTheHat

With the exception of their win over WSU, they haven't scored a ton of points. The cautionary tale would be their win at UCLA. And, it's theoretically possible their freshman QB Jaden Rashada could be healthy enough to play some against us, which would give them a different (poor man's) Jaden Daniel...

TheCatInTheHat

AZCatGirl wrote: ↑Sat Nov 18, 2023 11:57 am And good riddance!

Can we put the XII on there now? Or is it going to be the XVI?

TheCatInTheHat

Wilner is such a jackass. ASU will hire an "impressive" replacement as AD for Anderson. Because Crow has done "first-rate" work. Yeah, despite the fact that he hired the guy in the first place, had a large share of responsibility for Larry Scott's long and destructive tenure, and he has somehow mana...

TheCatInTheHat

Big, deep, physical, conservative, ground-and-pound. Home wins over Florida and UCLA, and road wins at USC and at Baylor. Their worst moment was a home blowout at the hands of Oregon, and they lost by two scores at Oregon St. Otherwise, an impressive season, including the narrow loss Saturday at Sea...

TheCatInTheHat

Can anybody remember the last time we had a basketball/football "double" over a weekend anywhere near as big as this? I'm sure we have, it's just a question of how long ago. I'll exclude anything but the very best ASU football teams on some of those Thanksgiving weekends when Lute won some big hoops...

TheCatInTheHat

That was the biggee we talked about back in the off-season; just get into a bowl game. Done, and with lots of bonuses. I think we would have been okay with the Arizona Bowl or the Independence Bowl. Any bowl would do. Now we've got a shot at the Holiday Bowl and other options. It also would have suc...

TheCatInTheHat

Not sure San Jose does much for us, and not sure SDSU wants to mess with us. They've only won once in the last 6 games. We might be able to package overall home-and-homes with them including hoops and baseball. Otherwise, it's a bit like the pre-Pac. We always had lots of players on the roster from ...

TheCatInTheHat

Looking at the schedule, we've got the non-conference game at K-State, so it's like 5 home and 5 road league games (even though KSU is technically non-conference.) We also play New Mexico in a one-off in Tucson, as well as NAU. There isn't the glitz of the LA schools or Oregon (and I never personall...

TheCatInTheHat

WVU fans already circled coming out to Tucson in November. Looking forward to Morgantown . West Virginia is a beautiful state and would love to see more of it I was back there visiting friends not long ago. There's a lot of history there and some beautiful vineyards. Also much natural beauty with s...

TheCatInTheHat

Wilner put out some snarky comment about it, naturally. One of the aspects I enjoy about the collapse of the Pac-12 is that some leeches are now in life rafts. Instead of BS-ing his way though every aspect of the Pac-12 while getting paid syndication rights for a column that included rank speculatio...

TheCatInTheHat

This is another round of kicking the Pac-12's corpse. I won't get into the relatively minor sports, how aesthetic some of the locations are, or the academic PR stuff, as it's mostly irrelevant at the end of the day. You can make a case that the earliest indication of the Pac's demise was when the SE...

TheCatInTheHat

Here it is. Big, physical, fast, and deep. They have some motivation after DTR had to slink off the Rose Bowl turf last season after our game in what was supposed to be "his year." Meanwhile, after all the losses, scares, and tough games we've given them through the years, I'm quite sure that neithe...

TheCatInTheHat

I kind of look at this season as a celebration, and here's why. In fairly rapid succession, we had the transition from Dr. Hart to Dr. Robbins, from Byrne to Heeke, from RichRod (with the secretary thing) to Sumlin (with the booze thing), COVID, Scott to Kliavkoff, the demise of the Pac-12, and Ariz...

TheCatInTheHat

I'd forgotten all about this until the Connor Stalions thing popped up. I did some work in the old press box for Arizona Athletics in 1982. The last game of the season was the famous "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" game when we knocked ASU out of the Rose Bowl. After the game, I was meeting two...

TheCatInTheHat

They couldn't find a chair when the music stopped, that's for sure. In any event, some judge will decide, and they get it right as often as they do. I'll throw out one final data point on the consistency issue. Comcast will withhold $70M from all 12 teams this year stemming from Scott's financial mi...

TheCatInTheHat

From a reasonableness perspective, while I'm somewhat sympathetic to their situation, I think it's hard to justify giving two schools each a whopping $50M windfall over a possible misapplication of conference by-laws. And the circumstance of two teams leaving is different than a de facto overall dis...

TheCatInTheHat

No news flash, but Oregon State's a damned good football team. They're coming off a bye, just like we are, and that may be more advantageous to a team if the game after the bye is on the road. We won at WSU by a big margin, but a number of people think WSU has some schematic problems, and now that t...

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