Sonoran Hot Reads: Arizona announces two finalists for university president

Only two people stand in the race to replace Ann Weaver Hart

The University of Arizona made one of its two important hires this past weekend when announcing that Dave Heeke would be the new athletic director. Well, the other position, university president, is down to two names. The Board of Regents announced that the new president will either be current ASU employee Dr. Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan or Texas Medical Center CEO and president Dr. Robert Clayton Robbins. Panchanathan is the executive vice president and chief research and innovation officer of ASU’s Knowledge Enterprise Development. The top candidate will be visiting campus on March 8th, so be on the lookout

- Heeke is set to make $500k his first year, then receive automatic raises of $75k in each of the next two years. So far, Sean Miller has said he’s excited to have Heeke, and Rich Rodriguez has a list of things for the new athletic director to get done

Basketball

- Speaking of ASU, they have the most laughable reason for not scheduling Grand Canyon in any sports

- Three Pac-12 teams in this year’s Final Four is something that the College GameDay guys talked about as a reality this past weekend, and Gary Parrish wrote this piece about it after UCLA’s victory in Tucson

- This is kinda old now, but read this about DeAndre Ayton

- Having a week off came at a really good time for the Wildcats, especially an injured Kadeem Allen

- Matt was back from his honeymoon with a brand new bracketology, where he had to drop Arizona to the 3-line for now

Football

- Arizona has had a lot of coaching staff changes, including Kylan Butler, who is at RichRod’s old stomping grounds of Glenville State as the new running backs coach

- New coach Theron Aych will have to adjust quickly, but is ready for the challenge

- Bleacher Report certainly loves them some K’Hari Lane. Jamarye Joiner is picking up some attention after a recent 7on7 tournament

Baseball

- Arizona now finds itself in the top ten of two polls after a hard fought 8-0 start to the 2017 season

- Jared Oliva’s hitting the ball better because he’s seeing the ball better. Yep, that simple

- Rio Gomez finds himself in a starting role now, which is something that he finds enjoyable

- The Wildcats took an exhibition game from the NC Dinos on Tuesday afternoon

Arizona commit Tony Bullard & Cole Pofek went off this weekend for JW North. Cole hit a grand slam & had 7 RBIs while Tony hit a bomb too! http://pic.twitter.com/IQLL3rzFTO

— IE Dreamers (@iedreamers) February 26, 2017

Other sports

- Prior to softball’s weekend in Palm Springs, ESPN wrote about how this team “has that look” as a National Championship contender. They went 4-1 at Mary Nutter, losing their first game of the year to No. 1 Florida State

- Women’s basketball will face Oregon in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament on Wednesday. You can find the full bracket here

- Arizona swimming commit Sam Iida broke the Illinois state record in the 200 IM. The current men’s team begins Pac-12 Championships in Seattle on Wednesday

- Men’s golf was 5th in this week’s NIT, which was played in Tucson

- Men’s tennis is now 6-4 after losing to LMU

Tucson news

- According to USNews, Arizona is the 34th-best state in the country. The state was 12th overall in infrastructure, but 43rd overall in education. Highways before schools...always

- The TUSD superintendent officially resigned on Tuesday

Car went through the gate at Chiba Hut. No one hurt. @whatsuptucson http://pic.twitter.com/p82Svt9mwe

— Austin (@Seems_Legit55) March 1, 2017

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts http://ift.tt/2lqN6dg
via IFTTT