Arizona basketball: Rawle Alkins loves Bill Walton

And so should you

Rawle Alkins is starting to catch the attention of a lot of people, namely for the Savage Life Movement.

But there’s one person that has really caught the attention of Alkins, and that’s Bill Walton.

“I love Bill’s commentating,” Alkins said last week. “He always shows me a lot of love and I appreciate that. Bill’s a great guy.”

“Sometimes I see highlights of the game, but I don’t see the full game,” added Alkins when asked if he goes back and watches the full broadcasts. “People will tell me about quotes that Bill would say and I respect some of the quotes he says.”

“I just love his energy that he brings,” Alkins continued. “His voice, it helps a lot with what he says. He’ll put a lot of emphasis on everything he says and it makes it interesting.”

“Everything he says is interesting to me. I could listen to him for a long time.”

During the Pac-12 Tournament Championship Game against the Oregon Ducks last Saturday, Walton called Alkins the “Brooklyn Bomber”. What that means though? We’re not really sure.

“I hope that that’s a good thing,” Alkins said after that game. “I don’t know what he means by that, but I’ll ask him.”

“Coming out of New York, they used to call me ‘King of the City’,” added Alkins about what his nickname was in high school. “Coming out of Rucker Park they named guys, so guys used to call me ‘King of the City’, so I like that nickname, and I like Savage Life.”

One other nickname that Walton has popularized during Arizona broadcasts is Chance Comanche’s “Chief” monicker, which was something that the big man was called in the locker room before it made its way to TV.

“We call Chance Chief, but I don’t remember why,” admitted Alkins. “Chance, why do we call you Chief?”

“Because I’m Native American,” Comanche responded dryly.

“He says it’s because he’s Native American, but I came in here with them all calling him that, so I just bought into that,” said Alkins.

Part of the Bill Walton experience in the Conference of Champions is the players meeting him during pregame shootaround when the former Bruin is doing their games.

“It was a walk through before a big game, but I don’t remember who we played,” Alkins recounted about the first time he met Walton. “He wanted to talk to me so we had a little sit down and he was asking me about myself.”

No more Walton the rest of the way this year, but if Alkins is back next year, he’ll certainly have plenty more conversations with Bill before big games.

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