Hansen Sunday Notebook: It's about now, not then

Damon Stoudamire says the reason so many wealthy ex-NBA stars don't pursue a career in college coaching is because "it's hard. … it's a grind.''

Greg Hansen: Re-brand El Rio golf course

At 8:30 Wednesday morning, I punched the gas in golf cart No. 68 and took a lap around the 114 acres of El Rio Golf Course. I did not count shots. I counted trees.

Arizona track and field Greg Hansen: Barrett has a higher calling

These are the three most unassailable records in UA women's sports history:

Greg Hansen: Livengood lost battle to UNLV president

When Jim Livengood announced he would be leaving college athletics last week, done in by a series of conflicts with UNLV president Neal Smatresk, I thought back to the Arizona-Harvard NCAA tournament basketball game.

Livengood lost battle to UNLV president

When Jim Livengood announced he would be leaving college athletics last week, done in by a series of conflicts with UNLV president Neal Smatresk, I thought back to the Arizona-Harvard NCAA tournament basketball game.

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Family still holding court

About 40 years ago, Tucson engineer R.E. "Bob'' Lee built a tennis court in his backyard. Here's what happened:

Greg Hansen: On Pima College Aztec softball

Armando Quiroz walks to softball practice cradling a bucket of Eegee's in his arms. It's neither a reward for a job well done nor a bribe to get his team's attention.

Greg Hansen: On golfers Ted Purdy, Brian Prouty, Jonathan Khan

Ted Purdy has won a personalized version of the grand slam of golf - tournaments on the PGA Tour, the Asian Tour, the Latin American Tour and the Nationwide Tour - but on Wednesday at Tucson National, he was more slammed than grand.

Greg Hansen: UA's Tedy Bruschi elected to shrine

The way it used to work in college football, before You Tube and video-on-demand, a high school coach would mail taped highlights of an under-the-radar player with a hand-written note that would say something like, "This kid may not be big, but he's all heart.''

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Have skills, will travel

The changing dynamics of college sports, roster movement at unprecedented levels - free agency, actually - was rarely more apparent than it was Friday during the UA-ASU softball game at Hillenbrand Stadium.

Greg Hansen: Age-old excuse not reason for downfall

In its final issue of the semester, the Arizona Daily Wildcat asked: Is UA softball coach Mike Candrea too old?

Greg Hansen: Smith looks at life, UA days in book

Anyone who writes a book and calls it "The Cornerstone of Arizona Basketball" either has an XXL-size ego, an NBA contract worth tens of millions, or must be a certified Sun Devil killer from Wichita, Kan.

Greg Hansen: Sahuaro pitcher is next can't-miss kid

At a school that has won three state championships and produced major-league ballplayers Jim Olander, Sammy Khalifa, Tom Wiedenbauer and John Butcher, a skinny eighth-grader wearing his cap backward shouldn't turn the coach's head.

High schools: Verdugo, Sahuaro thinking state title

At a school that has won three state championships and produced major-league ballplayers Jim Olander, Sammy Khalifa, Tom Wiedenbauer and John Butcher, a skinny eighth-grader wearing his cap backward shouldn’t turn the coach’s head.

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Carey compares well

The Pac-12 is so deep in draft-eligible prospects that the 2014 NFL draft could include 10 first-rounders from the league.

Greg Hansen Pac-12: Lude started spending spree

Mike Lude carries a black briefcase into a Tucson restaurant and slips unnoticed into a corner booth. It may sound like a mystery. It isn't.

Greg Hansen: Tomey's there for football ex-Cat Salum

The climax to every week at Camp Cochise, the can't-miss, feel-good-about-life moment, arrived when Dick Tomey stood in the middle of 100 football players and awarded a scholarship to a once-obscure walk-on.

Greg Hansen: Young, global Cats sit on the lip of greatness

On May 23, 2014 at the Tulsa Country Club, Arizona's women's golf team will win the NCAA championship. Write it down. Greg Byrne will submit a work order requesting a red banner be put into place on National Championship Drive.

Hansen Sunday Notebook: QB battle takes flight

Since leaving Lakewood High School as one of the most highly rated SoCal quarterbacks of the last decade, UA junior Jesse Scroggins describes his journey as "humbling."

Greg Hansen: Old tale usually ends well for Wildcats

Grant Jerrett is leaving school because he feared Aaron Gordon would get his shots, his minutes and his glory. That's it. It is the oldest and most familiar story in Arizona basketball.

Greg Hansen: Jerrett would be one-and- done-for

As the clock ticked from 28 to 27 to 26, a three-point shot by UCLA's Jordan Adams bounced off the rim. Game tied at 64.

Greg Hansen: New Arizona football facility ups ante

In lieu of a Rose Bowl celebration, Arizona fans used to glorify landmark victories by uprooting the goal posts and carrying them around campus, sometimes until the following day.

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Dream big, and win big

It has been 15 years since the Arizona Wildcats went 12-1 and beat Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. In terms of branding, presentation and financial growth, it seems like 50 years.

Greg Hansen: Tucsonans built team at Yavapai in 1970s

If you were a coach at the new junior college in Prescott, Yavapai College, a school with no baseball field, no recruiting budget and no guarantee it could offer anyone a baseball scholarship, the most preposterous of all statements in 1973 would've been:

Greg Hansen: Pac-12 basketball in 2013-14 will be undeniably improved

A day before Oregon opened the NCAA tournament against Oklahoma State, UO coach Dana Altman arranged for the Ducks to practice at San Jose's Archbishop Mitty High School.

Greg Hansen: Rehiring Peabody, opening recruiting gives Pima chance

You cannot hire someone to coach the Pima College men's basketball team unless his career itself has gone off the tracks and been left in debris. Unless you know how to react to a crisis, you are not qualified.

Hansen: Rehiring Peabody, opening recruiting gives Pima chance

You cannot hire someone to coach the Pima College men’s basketball team unless his career itself has gone off the tracks and been left in debris. Unless you know how to react to a crisis, you are not qualified.

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Hiring Rush in first place comes back to haunt Scott

Ed Rush is gone, but the collateral damage is widespread. It has taken a toll on Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne, and diminished the credibility of college basketball officiating everywhere.

Greg Hansen: Miller's T a rarity in Pac-12; coincidence?

Until referee Michael Irving called a technical foul on Arizona coach Sean Miller in the Pac-12 semifinals, he had worked 27 games involving conference teams without assessing a coach's technical foul.

Greg Hansen: Cloud of suspicion envelops Pac-12

Ed Rush toured the Pac-12 basketball campuses last summer, establishing groundwork and marking his territory, the new-cop-in-town routine that was good in theory but doomed from the start.

Greg Hansen: Kevin Cordes is in fast lane to greatness

UA swimmers have been so good for so long, on every conceivable stage, that you don't often call the boss and say, "Forget the Final Four, I've gotta get this in the paper now!"

Cordes, Geer astonish swimming world with 4 NCAA titles for UA

UA swimmers have been so good for so long, on every conceivable stage, that you don’t often call the boss and say, “Forget the Final Four, I’ve gotta get this in the paper now!”

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Ashley won't disappear

Late last month, after being swept by USC and UCLA, Arizona freshman Brandon Ashley and his mother, Lashiem Clark, had a long meeting with the UA coaching staff.

Greg Hansen: If this is the worst thing with Arizona basketball, things are OK

LOS ANGELES - The clock was ticking again on Grant Jerrett, four minutes and counting, before the NCAA-mandated 30-minute open locker room period would expire.

Greg Hansen: 16 candles for Arizona basketball

In Tucson, the Sweet 16 lost its innocence 37 years ago, or at least that's when it lost its ability to awe and intimidate.

Greg Hansen: Arizona basketball will need luck, skill to make Elite Eight

LOS ANGELES — Sometimes the other guy is so good that you leave the gym aware you could've gone no further. Bad draw, bad luck, bad day to be a Wildcat.

Greg Hansen: NCAA tourney brings old pals Whitford, Matta and Jay John together

The truth, the whole truth, half-truths, shades of the truth and other items admissible as Sweet 16 munchies:

Greg Hansen: As Zags sag, Cats putting it together

SALT LAKE CITY

Hansen Sunday Notebook: As ASU treads water, Cats reload at wing, point guard

SALT LAKE CITY - The competitive gulf between basketball programs at Arizona and ASU continues to spread, moving back to Lute Olson levels and here's why:

Greg Hansen: February fears evaporate in Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY

Greg Hansen: Crimson coach Amaker understands underdogs

SALT LAKE CITY

Greg Hansen: Arizona impresses Belmont's Byrd, flock

In the 72 hours it took Belmont coach Rick Byrd to mobilize a game plan he believed could beat Arizona, the expectations back home in Tennessee became a bit warped.

Greg Hansen: Belmont may stir up painful memories

SALT LAKE CITY

Arizona basketball Greg Hansen: Miller fine lets Pac-12 draw line

The Pac-12 has been so provincial and so soft for so long that it was inevitable a coach like Arizona's Sean Miller would pay for the sins of his predecessors.

Greg Hansen: Miller fine lets Pac-12 draw line

The Pac-12 has been so provincial and so soft for so long that it was inevitable a coach like Arizona’s Sean Miller would pay for the sins of his predecessors.

Greg Hansen: No sixth sense: Arizona's basketball fate unpredictable

A sixth seed was Kansas, 1988, running the table, cutting down the nets Arizona so desperately hoped would become treasures in Lute Olson's trophy case.

Hansen Sunday Notebook: Sadly, Pac-12 ref becomes bigger story than players

Immediately after Friday's loss to UCLA, while the game was still bigger than life, Arizona's locker room was funereal, almost as if the Wildcats had been kicked out of the NCAA tournament by East Tennessee State or Santa Clara.

Greg Hansen: Without fire, Cats and their boss burn

LAS VEGAS

Greg Hansen: It's gotta be the hair - Mayes a force again

LAS VEGAS

Greg Hansen: Time for changes in Pac-12 basketball

If I were King of Pac-12 Basketball, I would cut the shot clock to 30 seconds. Did you realize only Arizona (71.3), Stanford (71.3) and UCLA (70.8) averaged more than 68 points in Pac-12 games this season?