Arizona in the NBA playoffs: Andre Iguodala, Heat stun Bucks to open East semis
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
The Heat’s perfect playoff run continued Monday as they upset the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks 115-104 to open the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Miami is now 5-0 in the postseason after cruising past the Indiana Pacers in the first round.
Former Arizona Wildcat Andre Iguodala, the last Lute Olson-coached player in the NBA, contributed two points, four rebounds, a steal, a block and two turnovers in 19 minutes.
A +7, Iggy shot 1-for-4, throwing down a breakaway dunk after a steal and missing all three of his 3-point attempts.
Unlike the first round, Iguodala was not on the floor in crunch time. He exited with 8:56 left in the fourth and the Heat holding a 92-90 lead, before returning with 1:31 left as Miami held an eight-point lead.
Still, he was one of several defenders the Heat deployed on Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was held to 18 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists on 6-of-12 shooting (and 4-of-12 free throw shooting). He also committed six turnovers.
Jimmy Butler led Miami with 40 points on just 20 shots.
What’s next?
Game 2 is scheduled for Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. MST on ESPN. The Bucks also lost the first game of their series with the Magic before winning four straight, so there is no reason to panic yet.
I like Iguodala a lot but he hasn't helped Miami a whole lot today. MIL willing to let him shoot & he hasn't held up against Giannis when switched onto him.
Arizona soccer ranked as a top-20 program over past 5 years
Photo by Ryan Kelapire
After being the Pac-12’s doormat for years, Arizona soccer has been a top-20 program in the country over the last five seasons.
Don’t take it from me; take it from SoccerWire.com, which ranked the Wildcats as the No. 18 program in the country since 2015. The rankings are based on “a combination of United Soccer Coaches Polls and Rating Percentage Index (RPI).”
Four other Pac-12 squads made the Top 25: Stanford (1), USC (7), UCLA (14) and Washington State (22). Cal isn’t that far behind at No. 36.
Since 2015, Arizona has gone 59-33-10 overall and 27-22-6 in the ultra-competitive Pac-12, with five wins in four trips to the NCAA Tournament.
In the five seasons before that, three of which were led by former head coach Lisa Oyen, Arizona went 32-55-13 overall, 12-36-5 in the Pac-12 and only made the NCAA Tournament once—in 2014, which ended a nine-year postseason drought.
Arizona’s recent improvement is even more stark when you break it down by coaching eras.
Oyen (2010-12): 12-40-7 overall, 4-24-3 Pac-10/12
Tony Amato (2013-present): 79-48-16 overall, 35-34-8 Pac-12
Amato, who was hired away from Stephen F. Austin, has never had a losing season in seven years at the helm, despite the Wildcats posting a losing season every year except two in their first 19 years of existence.
Arizona has turned it around with high-press defending and an attack that has shifted from direct to possession-oriented as the talent level has improved and players’ strengths have changed.
UA player tend to be fitter than the opposition too, thanks in part to Jim Krumpos and the rest of the strength and conditioning staff.
“We founded the program on being able to think outside the box and overcome obstacles and present things differently,” Amato said earlier this offseason. “That’s a message we shared from the moment we got here and we’ve been able to do that over the years.”
This year, the Wildcats have the chance to reach the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year for the first time in program history, though they will have to overcome the coronavirus pandemic that has delayed the start of the season and roster turnover that saw them lose half their players from a very successful 2019 campaign.
“Three straight years (of making it to the NCAA Tournament) is really important to us because when we went in 2014, a couple of people said to me, ‘Oh, it’s great to have a good season,’” Amato said. “And some people even said, ‘Can you make sure it’s more than one season? Is it just kind of a flash-in-the-pan kind of season?’ And we went back in ‘15 and made a run, missed in ‘16, and then have gone back in ‘17, ‘18. ‘19, which I think shows the consistency of the program, the stability of the program, how hard our players work, how we keep improving and that getting better means a lot to us.”
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Arizona the favorite to land 4-star forward DaRon Holmes?
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Could DaRon Holmes be Arizona’s next commitment?
Corey Evans, one of the most connected people in the industry seems to think so, recently submitting a FutureCast in Arizona’s favor. (Rivals’ equivalent of a Crystal Ball prediction.)
The 6-foot-8 forward is the No. 37 player in the 2021 class, per 247Sports composite rankings. Holmes is attending Montverde Academy in Florida this year, but originally is from Goodyear, Arizona where he attended Millenium High School.
Holmes was the 2019-20 Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year after averaging 23.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.8 blocks per game.
Holmes also has offers from Virginia, Kansas, ASU, Cal, Tennessee, UCLA, Texas Tech, USC, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, LSU, Marquette and some mid-majors.
Arizona will say goodbye to Ira Lee after the season and would love to not have to look too far to replace the four-year contributor in Tucson. Sure, Holmes will be taking his talents to Florida’s Montverde Academy for his senior season, but Sean Miller had no issues bringing Josh Green back home after Green completed his own prep career in the Sunshine State. Holmes has been one of Miller’s targets over the years and Arizona has been one of the best programs in America at keeping homegrown talent in-state.
Arizona currently has a commitment from four-star combo guard K.J. Simpson, and its recruiting class would jump from 54th in the country to 21st by landing Holmes, who is a “versatile post with pretty good size for the position and okay length,” per his 247Sports scouting report.
“He has gained a significant amount of strength throughout his high school career and isn’t maxed out yet but has a strong, chiseled frame,” it reads. “Holmes is most comfortable as a scorer facing the basket and has a legitimate threat shooting off the bounce. He can improve his efficiency with better shot selection but can hit occasional shots from the perimeter as well. Has physical tools to better with back to basket. Rebounds well for position. Somewhat in-between four and five on defense but has chance to guard either position. Projects as high major starter.”
Holmes unofficially visited Arizona in October. If you want to know what he’d look like in an Arizona uniform, here you go:
Arizona guard Shaina Pellington opens up about Oklahoma career for first time
Photo by Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Earlier this week, former members of the Oklahoma Sooners women’s basketball team began making statements on social media about their mistreatment under coach Sherri Coale.
Current Arizona guard Shaina Pellington, who transferred in from OU before last season, gave her support to those accounts over the weekend.
In a pinned tweet, Pellington spoke to the public accounts of Gioya Carter and other former OU women’s basketball players regarding racial insensitivity by Coale. Pellington also wrote about the larger issues of support for Black and LGBT athletes.
Pellington began by retweeting Carter and others on Aug. 29, but made her own statement on Aug. 30, writing, “It pains me to see so many of my fellow teammates and alumni share the same experiences that I did at the University of Oklahoma.”
Pellington’s career at Oklahoma came to a rocky ending her sophomore season. She was suspended by Coale, and didn't play over the final five games even after the suspension was lifted. In interviews, Coale responded to questions about Pellington by stating that the players who practiced and played hard were playing.
Pellington was asked about Coale’s comments at Arizona’s local media day in October, 2019.
“There were a lot of things said, and I don’t know what I can and can’t comment on, but all I can say is you don’t have the accolades that I have if you don’t practice hard,” she told Ryan Kelapire.
Among those accolades are Big XII Freshman of the Year and being one of just three amateurs on the Canadian National Team that qualified for the Olympics.
Ten months later, Pellington finally feels that she’s able to publicly comment on her experiences at Oklahoma.
“You just don’t hear about it because it’s swept under the rug,” Pellington wrote on Sunday. “Or we have to turn the other cheek and be the ‘bigger person’. I had to do just that. I had to watch my name get tarnished with lies and false accusations, to show you all that I was beyond it... Well, guess what, I am DONE being the bigger person.”
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Former Arizona linebacker Colin Schooler transfers to Texas Tech
Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports
In a perfect world, Colin Schooler would be coming off the final season opener of his Arizona Wildcats career, with a trip to Texas Tech coming up in a few weeks.
Instead, Schooler will still be heading to Lubbock but as part of the Red Raiders instead of the school he spent the last three years at.
Schooler, who entered the NCAA transfer portal earlier this month, announced Sunday he has committed to Texas Tech for the 2020 season. As a graduate transfer he will be eligible immediately.
The 6-foot-1, 229-pound Schooler started every game for Arizona from 2017-19, logging 312 tackles and 46 tackles for loss in his career. He and older brother Brenden Schooler, who had come to the UA as a graduate transfer from Oregon during the winter, both left the program on Aug. 19 in hopes of finding a school that would be playing college football this fall.
The Pac-12 cancelled all sports for the remainder of 2020, prompting the departures. Brenden Schooler committed to Texas on Friday, and the siblings will face each other in a few weeks in the Big 12.
Arizona transfers Colin Schooler (Texas Tech) and Brenden Schooler (Texas) will get to play against each other on Sept. 26, the opening weekend of Big 12 play.
Colin Schooler is one of three three-year starters Arizona lost from its defense this offseason. Fellow linebacker Tony Fields II and safety Scottie Young Jr. are both at West Virginia, where former UA assistant Jahmile Addae is on the staff.
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Arizona in the NBA Playoffs: Defending champion Raptors crushed by Celtics as former Wildcats shut out
Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images
(Editor’s note: With Pac-12 sports gone until January, we will be recapping every NBA playoff game that includes a former Arizona Wildcat, along with some social media reaction.)
After registering its first-ever playoff sweep in the first round, the Toronto Raptors came crashing down to Earth in the opener of its Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Boston Celtics.
Second-seeded Toronto, the defending NBA champions, fell behind 16 points after one quarter and never recovered in falling 112-94 to the Boston Celtics on Sunday in the Orlando playoff bubble.
Third-seeded Boston had six players in double figures, with Marcus Smart and Jayson Tatum score 21 apiece, while Kemba Walker had 18 points and 10 assists and Daniel Theis has 13 points and 15 rebounds.
The Raptors, who averaged 126.3 points in a first-round sweep of the Brooklyn Nets, shot 36.9 percent and made just 10 of 40 3-pointers.
Toronto and Boston resume their best-of-seven series on Tuesday, with a tip time to be determined.
The other half of the Easter Conference playoffs begins Monday when the Miami Heat—featuring ex-Wildcats Andre Iguodala and Solomon Hill—take on the Milwaukee Bucks at 3:30 p.m. MST on TNT.
What they’re saying about Arizona’s guys on social media
Quite interesting Rondae didn’t play until now. Would’ve thought his energy and rebounding could be a difference-maker.
This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as Dalbec is Boston’s No. 1 prospect and made a name for himself as one of the best home-run hitters in the minor leagues after a standout career with the Arizona Wildcats, with whom he was a fearsome hitter and dominant closer.
But there’s nothing better than doing it in the big leagues.
Here’s to many more to come.
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The 25-year-old was promoted after the club traded first baseman/designated hitter Mitch Moreland to the San Diego Padres earlier in the day.
Dalbec is Boston’s No. 1 prospect. In 1,370 minor league at-bats, the former Arizona Wildcat has posted a .261/.362/.505 slash line while belting 79 homers, making a name for himself as one of the best power-hitters in the minors.
Dalbec was a two-way player at Arizona from 2014-2016, and was UA’s closer in 2016 when it finished as the College World Series runner-up. He also hit 23 homers and knocked in 123 runs in his college career.
Minor league baseball was canceled this year due to the coronavirus crisis, so Dalbec has spent the 2020 season at the Red Sox alternate training site in Pawtucket.
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Sim Season: Arizona drops another heartbreaker to Hawaii
Virtual Lucas Havrisik in disbelief after missing a last-second kick
Too realistic.
(Editor’s note: Since the Pac-12 is not playing football this fall, we’re going to simulate all 12 games on Arizona’s original schedule on NCAA Football 14 and recap them on the dates on which they were supposed to be played. Enjoy!)
Another heartbreaker against Hawaii.
Lucas Havrisik’s 56-yard field-goal attempt drifted wide right as the final seconds ticked away and the Rainbow Warriors hung on for a 16-15 road win over the Arizona Wildcats to open the 2020 season.
The victory comes a year after Hawaii stopped Khalil Tate short at the goal line as time expired in Honolulu.
Havrisik was the hero...until he wasn’t.
The UA senior had drilled all five of his field-goal attempts before his final kick, including makes from 45 and 54 yards.
He was Arizona’s lone scorer on a night when it outgained Hawaii 429-233, but was hampered by turnovers and lousy red zone execution.
Sophomore quarterback Grant Gunnell completed 45 of 53 passes for 377 yards, but turned it over twice, with both giveaways resulting in Hawaii points.
Gunnell was stripped on Arizona’s opening drive after the Wildcats approached midfield. His pocket awareness didn’t look good, but his right tackle didn’t do him any favors.
Hawaii quarterback Chevan Cordeiro picked up a big first down with his legs on the ensuing drive—then punched it in at the goal line for the first points of the game, though it didn’t appear he ever crossed the plane.
The Wildcats got conservative on their next drive, dumping it off to Gary Brightwell on third and long, causing a chorus of boos to emanate from the Arizona Stadium stands. (Remember when fans were actually allowed at games?)
Gunnell was intercepted on the following drive after Arizona nickle-and-dimed into Hawaii territory. The Warriors turned that into a 47-yard field goal, giving them a 10-0 cushion with 6:11 left in the second quarter.
Havrisik drilled two field goals, including a 45-yarder in the final seconds of the second quarter, to pull Arizona within 10-6 at the half.
Gunnell was sharper in the second half, but Arizona’s three red-zone trips only resulted in three field goals.
The Wildcats opted to kick a field goal on 4th and short at the Hawaii 10, cutting their deficit to 10-9 lead when Havrisik converted the chip shot with two minutes left in the third.
Havrisik struck again by making a 54-yarder from pretty much the same spot his final kick came from.
“I can’t believe this is still a close game,” analyst Kirk Herbstreit quipped after Havrisik later made a 21-yarder on 4th and goal at the 4 to give Arizona a 15-10 lead with under two minutes to play.
The Wildcats bled several minutes off the clock on their 17-play, 63-yard scoring drive, but settling for a field goal left the door open for Cordeiro and company to make a comeback.
The redshirt sophomore mostly struggled through the air, going 18 for 33 for 136 yards, but was clutch down the stretch.
With 34 seconds left, he fired an 11-yard dart to Rico Bussey over the middle for the game-winning touchdown. That was just a couple plays after Cordeiro floated a 29-yard pass along the right side to Calvin Turner to put the Warriors in the red zone.
An incredible diving catch by Brian Casteel gave Arizona life at the Hawaii 44 with 17 seconds left as they mounted a rally of their own.
Gunnell quickly lined up the offense and took a deep shot to the end zone, but it was almost intercepted near the pylon.
Holy crap, what a catch by Brian Casteel!
Arizona is now in Hawaii territory, but there’s only 11 seconds left after a shot to the end zone was almost picked off. #SimSeason is stressful. pic.twitter.com/3QI3MKN9Q3
A nine-yard swing pass to Brightwell moved Arizona within field goal range, but the field goal unit was whistled for a false start on 3rd and 1, making Havrisik’s potential game-winner all the more difficult.
His 56-yard attempt had plenty of distance anyway—he has 96 kicking power in NCAA—but was clearly off the mark from the moment it left his foot.
And that’ll do it.
Lucas Havrisik’s 56-yard field goal attempt goes wide right, and Arizona falls to Hawaii 16-15 to open the 2020 #SimSeason.
“That is just a devastating miss for this team,” Herbstreit said, as cameras showed Havrisik shrugging his arms in the air.
Especially since Arizona’s defense had been surprisingly stingy, though it didn’t make any big plays and benefitted from some costly Hawaii drops.
McKenzie Barnes registered UA’s lone sack on a cornerback blitz and the secondary mishandled multiple would-be interceptions.
Aside from two long catches by Casteel and a 44-yard strike to Brenden Schooler, who did not transfer from Arizona because the season started on time in this alternate universe, the Wildcats moved the ball almost exclusively with short passes.
Brightwell struggled to get going on the ground, carrying the rock 17 times for a meager 52 yards.
The Wildcats got too cute in the second quarter, faking a punt on 4th and 1 at the Hawaii 44. Bryce Wolma, the upback, was tackled behind the line of scrimmage.
Why did Arizona even bring out the punt unit in the first place? Not sure—coaches weren’t available for comment because they don’t exist—but it was one of many questionable fourth-down decisions on the night.
It didn’t help that Arizona lost star receiver Jamarye Joiner to a shoulder strain in the first quarter after he took a hard hit on a bubble screen. Tough stretch for him after he broke his foot in the spring.
However, sources say Joiner will return next game vs. Portland State, a must-win for the Wildcats, who will then face Stanford and Texas Tech.
(Reminder: This is not real. Only for fun.)
More highlights
The boo birds are already out as Arizona gets conservative on its second drive. pic.twitter.com/Q7avvjo4KB
Grant Gunnell finds Brenden Schooler (who did not transfer in this simulation) for 44 yards. Arizona has a chance to grab the lead in the 3rd. #SimSeasonpic.twitter.com/7oVFgBXcW6
A ton of good content has been published about Lute Olson over the last couple days, but you definitely want to watch this chilling tribute from FOX Sports Arizona.
Todd Walsh, a UA alum and former basketball manager, does a tremendous job capturing what made Olson such a great coach, how he was able to connect with the community, and the legacy he leaves behind.
So take a few minutes to take a trip down memory lane:
"Lute promised that this was a bandwagon with plenty of room and asked that we climb aboard to enjoy the ride. He promised, he delivered, and we did."@ToddWalsh remembers the iconic Arizona coach.@APlayersProgrampic.twitter.com/ChckdtCxMF
The teams also held a moment of silence before tipoff for Olson, former All-Star Clifford Robinson and actor Chadwick Boseman, who also passed away recently.
The NBA holds a moment of silence for Clifford Robinson, Lute Olson, and Chadwick Boseman.
Olson certainly made his mark in the NBA, producing 34 draft picks, including 14 first-rounders (15 if you include Jordan Hill). Olson’s players went on to win 22 championships and make a combined $1.2 billion in salary.
There are also plenty of assistants who played for Olson, such as Miles Simon (Lakers), Jud Buechler (Knicks), Bret Brielmaier (Nets) and Matt Brase (Rockets).
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Elliott was probably Olson’s most valuable player too.
After plucking him from Tucson’s Cholla High School—“to get him right out of town is amazing to me,” Olson once said—Elliott immediately contributed at a high level, leading Arizona in scoring as a freshman as the Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.
By Elliott’s junior year, he was an All-American, Pac-10 Player of the Year, and leading Arizona to its first Final Four, averaging 19.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game, numbers he’d top as a senior.
To this day, Elliott still holds the program’s all-time scoring record by a huge margin, and he might hold it forever, seeing that top players rarely stick around for four seasons anymore.
Elliott reflected on Olson’s death on ESPN’s The Jump on Friday.
“It’s really hard to put into words the impact that he’s had on me and the entire Tucson community,” Elliott said. “Not just Tucson but the entire state of Arizona. I always joke to people that when I was in high school, Tucson is where all the scouts stopped to gas up on their way to L.A. No one was coming to watch basketball in Tucson. And Coach just changed that entire landscape. He was larger than life. He just had a presence about him that his former players can tell you about. He just had a presence and an aura about him. Just to be around him, he was a legend in the city, but he was a legend to us as players too. We were there every day with him in practice. It’s hard right now for all of us because we’re still trying to digest this because if you’re around coach long enough, you almost felt like he was a god, like he was immortal.”
Since social justice is a burning topic in the NBA these days, Elliott was asked by Rachel Nichols what it meant that Olson once had his players wear Martin Luther King Jr. patches on their warmups before a game in the early 1990s to protest Arizona repealing MLK Day as a holiday.
“It meant a ton and it meant a lot to his players, and it meant a lot to the community,” Elliott said. “To be a player in Arizona, Coach Olson always taught giving back, and he was always instrumental in the community and enriching the community. So that kind of gesture, that kind of statement wasn’t surprising to me. If you were an Arizona basketball player, you’re expected to be more than just a basketball player. You’re an ambassador for the university, you’re an ambassador for the team, you’re an ambassador for the city and he was the first coach that I played for who really emphasized giving back and being a productive member of your community, not just being a basketball player. Coach just cared immensely about his players. Part of being a great coach was also fostering terrific young men.”
The full clip of Elliott’s interview, which co-stars Richard Jefferson, can be watched here:
Lute Olson was a Hall of Fame Coach and even more so a Hall of Fame human - former Arizona stars Sean Elliott and Richard Jefferson join The Jump to remember Coach O, and his seismic impact on the sport he loved. pic.twitter.com/SUvI8t3nXo
4 Arizona softball stars hope to inspire in Athletes Unlimited’s inaugural season, starting Saturday
Danielle O’Toole | Jade Hewitt Media
Four former Arizona softball stars—third baseman Katiyana Mauga, outfielder Mandie Perez and pitchers Danielle O’Toole and Taylor McQuillin—will play in Athletes Unlimited this summer, a new player-centric pro league that uses a point-based scoring system.
The league features 56 athletesand four teams that are re-drafted each week, with the top performers serving as the team captains.
Points are earned through individual stats, innings won, and team wins. At the end of the season, players will be ranked individually by points, with cash bonuses and MVP titles awarded to the top scorers.
This league-produced graphic breaks it all down:
The league believes this unique system will “produce greater team parity while highlighting individual parity.”
The inaugural season begins Saturday and runs through Sept. 28. Thirty games (15 doubleheaders) will be played over five weeks at the Parkway Bank Sports Complex in Rosemont, Illinois, which is located on 27 Jennie Finch Way.
Holding games in a central location reduces the risk of a coronavirus outbreak. Players are also tested twice a week and provided housing to help shield them from the outside world.
For the first week, O’Toole will play for Team Fagan (Purple), Mauga will play for Team Warren (Orange) and McQuillin and Perez will suit up for Team Pendley (Blue).
Every game will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network, ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPN3, a big deal for a sport that has struggled to get exposure at the pro level.
Saturday’s season openers will air on ESPNU, with Team Warren taking on Team Fagan at 10 a.m. PST and Team Wagner and Team Pendley rounding out the doubleheader at 1 p.m. PST. (The full season schedule can be found HERE.)
“This new league has given so many women the opportunity to be in charge of their own career,” O’Toole said in a statement. “In doing so, the platform for women’s sports has grown in just a few short months.”
For O’Toole and fellow left-hander McQuillin, this is also a key part of their preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. They are two of six members of the Mexican National Team playing in Athletes Unlimited. Several Team USA players are in the league as well.
The Olympics were supposed to be held in July, but were postponed a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I am excited to not only play with my fellow teammates, but with athletes from multiple countries who will be participating in Tokyo as well,” said O’Toole, the 2017 Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year. “In preparation for 2021, these next six weeks will be priceless for many of us.”
Added McQuillin: “We are getting the best of the best competition, where all the players in the league are top notch.”
McQuillin also hopes Athletes Unlimited inspires the next generation of players and paves the way for more pro opportunities for female athletes in the future.
“The goal is to get softball viewed professionally the way people view softball collegiately,” she said in a statement. “Growing the game will allow a higher number of viewers past the college level and extend softball beyond that.”
McQuillin and O’Toole, both All-Americans at Arizona, were teammates in 2016 and 2017.
Mauga and Perez were among UA’s best hitters those years.
Together, they helped the Wildcats capture the 2017 Pac-12 championship, their first conference title in a decade.
Mauga graduated second in NCAA history in home runs (92), blasting 20 or more in all four seasons at Arizona, including 25 as a senior when she sported a .356 batting average—and a ridiculous .507 on-base percentage because she was intentionally walked a lot.
A speedy lefty with pop, Perez batted .387 that year, with six homers and a sparkling .491 on-base percentage in the leadoff spot.
Mauga and Perez played professionally for a year after graduating in 2017—Mauga for the Scrap Yard Dawgs and Perez for the USSSA Pride.
Mauga spent the 2020 college season as a volunteer coach at Mississippi State, an SEC rival of Arkansas, where McQuillin was on staff as a graduate assistant.
O’Toole and McQuillin pitched in National Pro Fastpitch last season, but that league canceled its 2020 campaign due to the pandemic, opening the door for Athletes Unlimited to begin a new, though radically different, chapter of pro softball.
“Athletes Unlimited has worked hard to get us not only what we need as athletes, but what we need as professionals, and a big factor is TV time,” said O’Toole, who coached at the University of San Diego and now gives pitching lessons. “For the younger generation to watch us, to dream like we did, it’s a blessing.”
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Gilbert Arenas’ tribute to Lute Olson—and Richard Jefferson’s reply—is hilarious
Gilbert Arenas, the super talented but equally eccentric guard who played for Arizona from 1999 to 2001, posted his tribute to the late Lute Olson on Instagram on Friday—and let’s just say it is perfect for someone who refers to himself as “No Chill Gil.”
Arenas posted a picture from his time at Arizona (which you can see above) that shows him being coached by Olson, who’s looking at Arenas with a puzzled face.
“This was usually the face Lute Olson gave me when I was explaining my decision making,” Arenas wrote, before describing what their conversations were like.
Lute: Why aren’t you running the play?
Me: Because the play wasn’t for me.
Lute: I know, it was for Richard.
Me: I KNOW, that’s exactly why I shot the ball because you accidentally called a play for Richard while I’m on fire [shrug emoji].
Lute: That pass you just attempted just made me throw up.
Me: And that’s why I don’t like passing the ball. I don’t wanna make you sick, Coach. [happy emoji]
1999: At my dinner table you told me you would redshirt me and in 5 years I would be an NBA player if I listened to you.
2001: You advised me to go pro. Thank you for allowing me to be me [100 emoji]. Thank you coach. Thank you for making us great men before being great basketball players. Your words will last for life and you taught much more than how to play the game.
Richard Jefferson made sure to chime in, pointing out that Arenas couldn’t have possibly been referring to the 2001 National Championship since Arenas most definitely was not “on fire” that night.
A sophomore at the time, he shot 4 for 17 as the Wildcats lost to Duke by 10.
“Everything else about this post is true,” Jefferson commented. “People can’t imagine how great of a coach he was. He had you, me, Loren Woods, Mike Wright, Eugene (Edgerson), Luke (Walton) and Jason Gardner. The fact that he made us look normal is his greatest achievement.... ps.... he begged you to get the [expletive emoji] out of there.”
Hey, it worked out pretty well for Arenas, who wound up getting selected in the second round of the 2001 NBA Draft and became an All-Star a few years later after leaving the Golden State Warriors for the Washington Wizards.
Arenas averaged close to 30 points per game at his peak, but injuries and questionable uses of firearms led to a quick decline. He was out of the NBA before his 31st birthday.
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Let’s go down memory lane and watch those hilarious Lute Olson and Bill Frieder commercials
Via @TimHealyASU on Twitter
It’s been a sad day for Wildcat Nation with the passing of legendary men’s basketball coach Lute Olson, arguably the most famous sports figure in Tucson history if not the entire state.
In times of sadness, though, we’re often reminded of some great memories we may have forgotten. Like those wonderful TV commercials that Lute and former ASU coach Bill Frieder did in the 1990s for Valley National Bank and Bank One.
Frieder, who coached the Sun Devils from 1989-97, recently spoke about those commercials as well as his relationship with Olson, noting their heated rivalry didn’t extend beyond the basketball court (via ASU spokesman Doug Tammaro):
Lute was a Hall of Fame coach and also an incredible friend, father and husband. I look back on our times with so much joy. The games were fantastic. The commercials were so much fun and were instrumental in bringing the schools together. The memories of dinners and having such great times with our wives will be there forever, in fact my daughter Laura has a great relationship with the Olson family. When on the road in the Pac-10 on Fridays if we were in the same hotel we would share thoughts on the game Thursday night and strategy for Saturday—it was always a joy.
Lute and I proved that you could compete hard on the court but be civil to each other after. I encourage everyone in the college basketball coaching world to cherish your friendships now. Keep them strong. Don’t let an intense game or a recruiting battle hurt them. Stay in touch. Get to know your coaching friends. I know that is what Lute and I did and I am thankful for it. It is a tough day for me because I lost a friend, but I had one for decades and the memories will outlast this sadness today.
Ok, now for some kooky local TV ads. Personal favorite: Lute managing to get his team booked on a low-cost airline to get to their game, only to find Frieder is the plane’s pilot.
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Lute Olson may be gone, but he will never be forgotten.
His legacy stretches far beyond the 589 games he won in Tucson, and here are six things the Arizona Wildcats can do to ensure that it will live on.
Bring back the Lute-era uniforms
Arizona’s gradient uniforms were out of style from the moment they were released in 2016, and for some reason they’ve kept them. But now is a perfect time to return to their roots and reintroduce the classic Lute Olson-era uniforms.
You know, these beauties:
Photo by Sporting News via Getty Images/Sporting News via Getty Images via Getty Images
They wouldn’t even need a modern redesign, only reigned in so they are not so baggy. Otherwise, they are incredible as they are. They just scream Lute Olson.
If not, then at least add a jersey patch
If new uniforms aren’t in store, the very least Arizona can do is stamp a commemorative “LO” or “Lute” patch on their jerseys for the 2020-21 season.
They could even take it a step further and do what Marquette has done with Al McGuire, and make Olson’s name/initials a permanent feature of their uniforms.
Name the arena after him
Look, Pop McKale accomplished a lot as Arizona’s athletic director, football coach and basketball coach in the early 20th century, including creating many of the traditions we love today, like “Bear Down” and the Wildcats nickname.
But nobody has done more for Arizona basketball than Olson. He’s the reason McKale Center was, and still is, one of the best venues in the game.
His teams made McKale the place to be, and fans should be reminded of that every time they step into the arena.
Yes, the court is already named after Lute and Bobbi Olson, but ticket stubs, broadcasts, and other mediums always say Arizona’s games are being played in “McKale Center.”
Let’s redirect the attention to the man who made it what it is today.
Put the cactus on the court again
OK, fine. Here’s some middle ground. Bring back the cactus logo that graced the court during the Lute era. It was not only a nice aesthetic, it was uniquely Arizona.
Hey, we even have a modern rendering from our talented friend Alejandro Alvarez!
Since Lute’s retirement, Arizona has done this weird thing where it’s become very generic, ditching its iconic uniforms and court design for ones you see all over the country, a real disservice to a program that worked so hard to become its own brand under Olson.
A large gathering—when those are acceptable again
Dozens of people paid their respects at Olson’s statue on the north side of McKale late Thursday night, which made me think of how the coronavirus pandemic will prevent Olson from being honored the way he should have. At least for the time being.
Arizona football was supposed to open its season two days after Olson’s death. Can you imagine the kind of tribute the school could have rolled out at Arizona Stadium?
When Lute’s statue was unveiled a couple years ago, the school hosted a private gathering outside McKale for his closest friends, colleagues and players.
At least hundred people showed up, including many of the big names you’d expect. For a public event, Arizona could pack McKale two times over.
Hopefully that can happen in the somewhat near future. It’d only be right.
Make the freaking Final Four
Olson coached Arizona to its first Final Four in 1988 and its last one all the way back in 2001.
It’s been hard to explain how such a storied program with so many talented players has failed to reach the big stage over the last two decades—well, besides the fact there’s been a lot of heartbreak—but that streak is bound to end eventually.
And when it does, it will be for Lute.
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The Arizona Wildcats wouldn’t be a nationally recognized college basketball program today if not for Lute Olson, who for some strange reason left a really good thing at Iowa in March 1983 to take over a team that had won four games the previous season.
But by the end of his second season he had the UA in the NCAA tournament, the start of a 23-year run of postseason bids, within five years he was in the Final Four and in 1997 led the Wildcats to their one and only national championship.
Cutting down the nets in Indianapolis after an overtime win over defending national champion Kentucky was one of the greatest moment in UA basketball history, but it’s just one of many memorable games during Lute’s 24-year reign in Tucson.
Follow along as we take a trip down memory lane and relive the big ones, both good and bad. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
First win vs. ASU
Arizona went 11-17 in Lute’s first season in 1983-84, which nowadays would be grounds for running the coach out of town but back then was a huge improvement. Previous coach Ben Lindsey went 4-24 in his only season, while the final three years of the Fred Snowden era were also below .500.
Yet the Wildcats started 3-11 under Olson, losing their first four Pac-10 games before rival ASU came to McKale Center on Jan. 20, 1984. It was a time of mourning within the program, as the father of sharpshooting freshman Steve Kerr had been killed two days earlier in a terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon.
Kerr responded by scoring 12 points in 25 minutes off the bench, leading the UA to a 71-49 win, the first of Olson’s 43 vs. the Sun Devils against only six defeats.
Great Alaska coming out party
After three consecutive trips to the NCAA tourney, Arizona began the 1987-88 season ranked for the first time in school history. That ranking would be put to the test during a Thanksgiving trip to the Great Alaska Shootout, which back then was one of the premier preseason tournaments.
The UA scored a school-record 133 points in the first game against Duquesne, then knocked off No. 9 Michigan for its first win over a top-10 opponent in eight years, setting up a showdown with No. 1 Syracuse for the title on Nov. 30.
By Dec. 1—those games started super late—Arizona had an 80-69 victory over the Orange for the program’s first win against a top-ranked opponent. And when the next Associated Press poll came out the Wildcats had jumped to ninth, another program first and a sign of things to come in the ensuing months.
First trip to the Final Four
A 12-0 start to 1987-88 was followed by a streamroll through the Pac-10, going 17-1 with the lone loss coming at Stanford in late January, then a breeze to the first of four conference tournament titles under Lute. But the NCAA tourney was a different story, as Arizona’s previous three trips ended with first-round exits against higher-seeded opponents.
Not this time. As the No. 1 seed in the West, the UA started out in Los Angeles, where they nicely beat Cornell and Seton Hall by a combined 69 points. Seattle was the site of the West Regional that year, and neither No. 5 Iowa (99-79) or No. 2 North Carolina (70-52) were a match for the Wildcats as they reached the Final Four for the first time in program history.
Arizona’s run ended in the national semifinals in Kansas City, with Oklahoma taking an 86-78 win and leaving the Wildcats with a stellar 35-3 mark.
Darn you, Steve Nash!
The UA proved it wasn’t a one-year wonder by winning eight NCAA tourney games over the next three seasons, reaching the Sweet 16 twice along the way. But then came a return to the first-round follies in 1992, albeit as the favorite and not the underdog, when as a No. 3 seed in the West the Wildcats were shocked 87-80 by No. 14 East Tennessee State in Atlanta.
That marked the seventh straight year a 14 beat a 3 in the tourney, so maybe it was just a blip on the radar for the Wildcats.
Fast forward a year, though, and turns out it wasn’t. Despite a 24-3 record and another 17-1 beatdown of Pac-10 foes, the second-seeded Wildcats ran into a buzzsaw in the form of No. 15 Santa Clara in the 1993 first round in Salt Lake City.
Or, rather, they ran into the hero ball of future NBA Hall of Famer Steve Nash, who scored 10 points off the bench including the game-clinching free throws at the end of the Broncos’ 64-61 upset.
Redemption Tour of ‘94
What have you done for me lately, right? It didn’t matter that Lute had won a second straight Pac-10 title or six of the last seven, the 1988 Final Four was a distant memory made all the more painful by the back-to-back embarrassing upsets in the 1992 and 1993 NCAA tourneys. Hard to believe, but there were some people calling for Olson to be fired prior to the 1994 tournament, which had Arizona as a No. 2 seed in the West.
There would be no first-round stress this time, however, or in any of the first four games as the Wildcats won by an average of 17.8 points on its way back to the Final Four. The 92-72 win over No. 1 seed Missouri in the Elite Eight was over by halftime, as the three-guard lineup of Damon Stoudamire, Khalid Reeves and Reggie Geary combined for 67 points.
Never one to pass on holding a grudge, Olson called out Arizona’s “fair-weather fans” who had soured on him after the first round upsets. “I have a very good memory. I remember the people who were with us. I remember the people who were not. I am bitter.”
A 91-82 loss to Arkansas in the Final Four in Charlotte took some luster off the run, as did another first-round upset to Miami (Ohio) a year later.
Down goes Kansas!
If you went back and looked at all of Lute’s teams and ranked them based on regular season performance, it’s very likely the 1996-97 squad wouldn’t be in the top half. At 19-9 it was Arizona’s most losses before the preseason in a decade, and the fifth place finish in the Pac-10 (including getting swept in the Bay Area at the end) was the Wildcats’ worst since Olson’s first year.
Shipped to Memphis as the No. 4 seed in the South Region, the Sweet 16 seemed like a high ceiling for this club. Narrow victories over No. 13 South Alabama and No. 12 College of Charleston only furthered this notion.
That put Arizona in a Sweet 16 matchup with top overall seed Kansas, which had a bunch of the players back from the team that beat the Wildcats in the same round in 1996. The Jayhawks were 34-1 and overwhelming favorites to win the title with four future NBA players in the starting lineup.
No sweat. The Wildcats would win 83-80, holding off a late Kansas surge to reach the Elite Eight where it would outlast upset-minded Providence en route to Indianapolis.
Simon says championship
Turns out, getting to the Final Four was the easy part. The UA only had to beat one No. 1 seed to reach Indy, with two more waiting in the wings.
First was North Carolina, whom Arizona dispatched 65-58 to reach its first-ever national title game. There waited another No. 1, Kentucky, the reigning champion that would go on to win the 1998 title as well. All that stood in the way of that potential three-peat was a Wildcat team that caught lightning in the bottle and was the epitome of what March Madness is all about.
An extra five minutes was needed to decide this one, as if UA fans weren’t already stressed enough, but in the end it was an 84-79 victory that brought Arizona its one and only national championship. Also, the only known occurrence of someone—Bennett Davison—messing up Lute’s perfect silver hairdo.
Below is One Shining Moment from the 1997 tourney. No, I’m not already crying, you’re already crying!
The Triangle and 2 Nightmare
As defending champs, Arizona took the extra attention that came with that in stride during a pre-tournament performance that saw it go 27-4 overall and 17-1 in the Pac-10 once again, winning 19 straight at one point. As the top seed in the West the Wildcats with their first three foes, setting up an intriguing showdown with No. 3 Utah in the Elite Eight in Anaheim.
Utah, then just a darling mid-major from the Mountain West, featured a pair of future NBA first-round picks in guard Andre Miller and big man Michael Doleac. But it was the Utes’ coach, Rick Majerus, who would prove to be Arizona’s nemesis.
Majerus, who won 500-plus games at four schools, was a disciple of Marquette coaching great Al Maguire. While he had plenty of talent over the years, his ability to develop schemes to neutralize opponents’ strengths was one of the things he was best known for.
Enter the Triangle and 2, a zone defense that is meant to frustrate a team’s top two scorers by denying them the ball as much as possible. Majerus unleashed this on Arizona, which saw Mike Bibby and Miles Simon go a combined 4 of 24 from the field and 0 for 10 from 3-point range in a 76-51 loss.
The UA shot 28.3 percent, far below its season average of 48.8 percent, scoring its fewest points in 13 years.
Jason Gardner was fouled!
Back in the Final Four in 2001, Arizona crushed defending champ Michigan State by 18 in the semifinals to make its second title game appearance. Awaiting the Wildcats was Duke, a team they hadn’t faced since the 1997 Maui Invitational.
The Blue Devils led 35-33 at the half and extended to an 11-point edge early in the second half only to see the UA rally several times to get within three. Ultimately, Duke would pull away and win 82-72, though who knows what would have happened if the below image was actually called what it was.
How is this not a foul?
That schedule, tho
Among the many things Lute was known for during his time at Arizona, aggressive non-conference scheduling was high on the list. The UA would often play a non-league opponent during one or both of the weeks during Pac-10 play when ASU was on the schedule, and it was rarely a creampuff foe.
That was the case in 2001-02, when the UA hosted a ranked Connecticut team in late January. The Wildcats would fall 100-98 in overtime.
That ended up being one of seven ranked teams Arizona would face outside of the Pac-10, where it met another nine ranked opponents. All told the Wildcats would 10-7 against ranked foes in 2001-02, including losing to No. 3 Oklahoma in the Sweet 16.
How about the 2001-2002 schedule:
Maryland - W
Florida - W
@ Texas - W
Kansas - L
Illinois - W
Purdue - W
@ Michigan St - L
Pepperdine- W
Valparaiso - W
UCONN - L
*Only 1 team missed the NCAA Tournament (Purdue - coached by Gene Keady)
If Twitter existed during Lute’s coaching career, there’s a very good chance he’d troll haters on there. Particularly those wearing maroon and gold.
Rivalries bring out the worst in people, and ASU fans never held back when going after Lute and/or his players. After all, this is the fan base that once made fun of Steve Kerr’s dad getting killed during pre-game warmups and later mockingly asked “Where’s Bobbi” during a 2001 game after Olson’s wife had recently died of ovarian cancer.
Somehow, Lute made it almost his entire career without firing back as the Sun Devil faithful. Almost.
In January 2004, during the Pac-10 opener in Tempe, Arizona was on its way to a convincing 93-74 win when Lute, finally fed up with hearing profanity from the crowd, simply pointed to the scoreboard as a reminder of what was happening on the court.
Game respect game, Coach.
Up 15 with with 4 minutes left, what could go wrong?
The last four years of Olson’s run with the Wildcats were mostly average, with each team making the NCAA tourney but three of those doing so as No. 8 seeds or worse and two flaming out in the first round. That includes Lute’s final game as UA coach, an unmemorable 72-63 loss to Purdue in New Orleans.
The 2004-05 team, though, was that last great squad under Olson. And it really looked like they were going to get him back to the Final Four one more time.
Following a last-second win over Oklahoma State in the Sweet 16, Arizona was neck and neck with No. 1 Illinois for much of their Elite Eight matchup in suburban Chicago. But then a patented Olson-team run put the Wildcats up 75-60 with four minutes left and it seemed like the UA was headed for St. Louis?
How much did it look that way? Yours truly booked his flight during the final TV timeout of regulation. So it’s probably my fault what happened next.
Illinois stormed back to force overtime, only after Arizona had two shots to win it in the final seconds, then the Fighting Illini took over in OT and won 90-89.
Fifteen years (and several close calls) later, Arizona is still trying to make it back to the Final Four.
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The senior wide receiver announced his decision to transfer from Arizona, whom he just joined in the spring, after the Pac-12 announced it would not be playing football this fall.
His younger brother Colin, a linebacker who spent three seasons at Arizona, is also in the transfer portal.
Brenden Schooler never appeared for the Wildcats, but logged 477 receiving yards and four touchdowns in three seasons with the Ducks, while making the Pac-12 All-Special Teams First Team.
Texas has plenty of talent at wide receiver — there are 10 healthy scholarship players there — but there isn’t much experience. Combined with the recent loss of freshman Troy Omeire, the breakout player in preseason camp, the Longhorns evidently still had a need at the position.
What does that say about players like junior Brennan Eagles and redshirt sophomore Josh Moore, both of whom are expected to take the next step this season? Head coach Tom Herman and wide receivers coach Andre Coleman certainly want them to have some more competition, judging by this move.
Even if Schooler doesn’t end up receiving many reps for Texas at wide receiver, he’ll push those younger players and should be an instant starter on special teams who can provide significant contributions in that phase.
And that’s the factor that likely made Schooler’s addition an easy decision for the Longhorns coaching staff.
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These quotes and stories explain why Lute Olson is a legend
Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images
As we continue to mourn the death of legendary Arizona Wildcats basketball coach Lute Olson, we compiled some stories and quotes from over the years that explain why Lute was, quite simply, the best. (To see some of the best social media reactions from a wide range of big names, click HERE.)
(All quotes were obtained first-hand unless noted otherwise.)
Pete Williams, who was on Olson’s first team in 1983: “Some time in my first year when I was over in Europe, one of our coaches asked me, ‘How did Coach Olson take the last place team and turn them into a champion?’ And what I said was what Coach Olson would do right away is he would change that culture of losing that existed in that team to the point they believed that losing would no longer be acceptable. Not only that, but moral victories would not be acceptable. He would work tirelessly with this group, preaching constantly winning attitude to the point where they believed a winning culture would be expected of them. And that’s one of the things that happened here with us. Yeah, it was tough in the beginning. And me I always consider myself a hard worker to begin with. But I didn’t really understand true hard work until I got here. Now, unfortunately I was unfairly forced to play center at 6-7, 190, but there were reasons for it. And even though I was undersized from a height standpoint, I could kind of make up for that with the way I jumped. But when you’re going up against guys that outweigh you by 40, 50 pounds that’s tough to do.
But Coach Olson is not having no excuses. I couldn’t run to Coach and say, “But Coach he’s too big.’ His thing would be, ‘Get back out there and play.’ That was the mindset. So what I developed from him was not only my work ethic elevated, but no excuses. I talked to former teammates. John Edgar and I, we talk often about a lot of things that we learned that Coach instilled in us here on the basketball court that we’ve been able to apply that to life, our current careers. Even at my slightly advanced age, I’m still a go getter. When I’m assigned with a task, I get out after it because you know what, Coach Olson would have it no other way.”
Damon Stoudamire, who played for Olson from 1991 to 1995: “I‘ll take it back to after we lost in the first round to Santa Clara in 1993. All those guys back there with those cameras and everything, they were on coach’s back. They really were like, ‘We couldn’t win the big one. We couldn’t do this. We couldn’t do that.’ I think as players we felt like we were coming up short for whatever reason. We knew we had the team, but it just wasn’t happening. Coach pulled me and Khalid Reeves into his office and he told us, ‘You know, I’m gonna try something new this coming up year. You two are my best players. I’ve never played through my guards before. I’ve always played through my bigs and my wings and I’m going to play through you guys. I really don’t know how this is going to work because I’ve never done it, but I’ve been studying and doing some things.’
And we had an Australian tour that was coming up in the summer, which was great timing for everybody to kind of get introduced to what we were doing. And me and Khalid, we just kind of lit up in his office because we were saying to ourselves, ‘It’s about time you figured out that we were the best players.’ But when we were practicing for Australia, we had a ball playing the way we were playing. We pressed, we trapped, we played with cohesion. And then we went over to Australia, I think we went 9 or 10 and 1. And it was the culmination of what started off to be probably my best year in college and we wound up winning the Pac-10 that season and going to the Final Four.
And I’m only bringing that up because now that I’m a head coach, it takes a lot of guts to change up your coaching style if you’ve been doing something and you’ve been successful at it for so long, and he was able to do that. And then it just kept on going up and up to where you recognize Arizona as Point Guard U. And that’s a tribute to coach and the things that he did to not only help utilize his own talents, but to put his own ego to the side and say this is the way that we can win games.”
Matt Muehlebach, who played for Olson from 1987 to 1991: “The other thing I think about Lute’s secret sauce is his attention to detail, his preparation. I think about that every day as a lawyer and how much that means to me, and the difference between great and good. Lute was as good as anyone I’ve ever seen. I remember a time we were playing in Europe in a summer tournament. It was supposed to be fun. We’re playing this team in France and he has us in the bowels of a hotel watching tape on a 19-inch TV. We literally couldn’t tell which team was which. And he’s saying, ‘Look at these guys.’ We’re like ‘OK, coach.’
“But his preparation as a basketball coach was just was incomparable. It looked like a Hoosiers 1955 basketball practice for the first 45 minutes. But by the end of practice, we looked like the Golden State Warriors. I mean, we ran we got up and down and you watch Steve Kerr’s teams, they play a lot like coach played then. In fact, it’s interesting. I was talking to Steve the other day and he said that we have a 3-on-2 conditioning drill and they call it the Lute Olson drill. So I think of that legacy and how much that lives on.”
Will Bynum, former UA guard who transferred after two seasons (viathe Knuckleheads podcast): “Coming from the hood in Chicago to be able to go to Arizona, that was heaven for me. But (it was a) learning process. I was coming from Chicago where I’m used to like an aggressive style of coaching, with coaches screaming in your face and they’re on you about every single detail, to meet somebody like Lute Olson who didn’t rarely say nothing. We didn’t see Lute Olson till the first official day of practice, so I didn’t really understand that. But then everything he would say on the court would be golden. Like moves, how to split screens, jamming up on the screen before getting over the top of the screen. Like little things he would say and I was like, ‘Damn, you know the game.’”
Steve Kerr, who played under Olson from 1983-1988 (via The Athletic): “Lute built a foundation from nothing. When he got to Arizona, he cleaned house. He really started from scratch. He built a family.”
Kerr (via the Arizona Alumni magazine): “When I met Lute Olson, I was 17 and didn’t know anything about anything. He introduced me to high-level basketball and to the environment you create, the importance of the group. We weren’t very good, but we felt special. There were team meals and barbecues and hard practices. We felt we were building something from the ground up. It was hard work, but we felt good about being part of it.”
Kerr: “I find myself still doing some of the ball-handling drills that we did when we were playing for Coach Olson. He was the first coach I ever had who used the toss back, and we would do the three-man passing drills with the toss back. One of the first things I did when I went to Golden State to coach was I ordered six toss backs. So we actually use them with the Warriors. But I think for me, it’s not so much the detail of what drills I took, it’s just the general sense that I learned from Coach, and that we all did, of just being incredibly organized and prepared and and running this program that just felt like something special. That’s what was so magical about about Coach Olson. He was in total command of that program and we all just felt so, so lucky to be part of it.”
Damon Stoudamire: “The thing that was special for me when I got to Arizona was how much the former players came back. Steve Kerr, Sean Elliott, Matt (Muehlebach), all the guys came back and they showed us the way. I think that was so important for a guy like myself. Just like any freshman, you get homesick. Those guys made it easier. So it was a great lesson for me, the family atmosphere that he created. The open-door policy at his house, Mike Dickerson comes to town, that’s like Kelly Olson’s son. He has a room at their place. They don’t know when he’s coming, but he just comes and he stays there. I think that’s special and that says a lot about Coach.”
Damon Stoudamire (via Tucson.com): “We used to go out to restaurants that I couldn’t pronounce. We’d always go out to dinner (on road trips) and at coach’s request we had to wear slacks and a collared shirt. I didn’t really want all that. I really just wanted a burger. But what I learned was etiquette. Coach was trying to teach us something bigger that we couldn’t see at the time.”
Luke Walton, who played under Olson from 1993 to 2003 (via ESPN): “Lute was huge on the details of the game. He would stop practice 35 times in one day. Until you got something correct, he was going to continue to stop it.”
Bruce Fraser who was a player and grad assistant at Arizona in 1980s (via The Athletic): “He wanted to have that level of respect. He wasn’t going to accept anything other than the best.”
Andre Iguodala, who played for Olson from 2002 to 2004, in his book: “There was something ruthless about him. I don’t mean that in a bad way, necessarily. When I was done working with him, I still wasn’t clear on whether I liked him. One thing was certain; he taught me the game of basketball like no one else ever had.”
Jason Terry, who played under Olson from 1996 to 1999 (via The Athletic): “My favorite story would probably have to be after we won the championship. He has this kind of aura about himself where he has the slick white hair that was perfectly placed. We always had a running joke in the locker room. A good friend of mine, Bennett Davison, who played with us and won the championship with us said, ‘Man, what I would do to one day to just ruffle his hair and mess it up.’ We’re like, ‘Nah, man. I wouldn’t do that. You never touch Lute, let alone touch his hair.’ So he was like, ‘Nah I’m telling you. If we win it, it’s the first thing I’m going to do.’ And it plays on all the videos, the One Shining Moment. Right after the game, Bennett doesn’t go to any of his teammates, doesn’t go to his parents or anything. He runs right up to Lute and he just messed his hair up. Hair was all over the place for about 10 seconds. That’s how long it took, 10 seconds, and then that hair was right back perfectly placed on his head. Not a single hair out of place. We were all dying laughing. It was hilarious.”
ESPN analyst/former Duke Blue Devil Jay Bilas: “Coach Olson recruited me to Iowa. I graduated high school in 1982, so when he started recruiting me, I loved him, and still do. He’s not only one of the great coaches but great gentleman I’ve ever met. My mom was going to Iowa, it didn’t matter where I went. She loved him. That was a done deal as soon as he walked in the door. She thought he was Paul Newman.
I visited Iowa and had a great time. I grew up in Los Angeles, so it was a little chillier than I liked or that I was used to, but I had a great time there. That’s the hard thing about recruiting, is you can only play for one coach. So I’m not disappointed in the choice I made; Coach K was a great choice. But it was hard to say no to Coach Olson. When he spoke, I was riveted to him. He was one of those coaches you trusted right out of the gate.”
Jawaan McClellan, who played for Olson from 2004 to 2007 (via ArizonaWildcats.com): “Coach O, you were more than just a coach to me you were really a father figure. You didn’t not see color and you never held us back from trying to leave school early to make a batter way for us and our families. It was far more than just basketball with you. Arizona was always my dream school and from watching Damon Stoudamire and Khalid Reeves to you being in the movie ‘He Got Game’ I always wanted to play for you. When I first saw you showed up to one of my AAU games, I thought I had seen a Ghost. Then you offered me a scholarship after only seeing me play 6 times. Because of you, I don’t know what a school loan even looks like. I thank you from the bottom of my heart coach for everything that you have done for and many more, may you Rest In Peace. Love you coach.”
Arizona Hall of Fame softball coach Mike Candrea: “Lute was Tucson. He was the man that put the University of Arizona on the map and I am proud to call him a mentor and a friend. He taught me how to brand our sport and run it with business principles. He was a great recruiter that was always willing to spend time and share his passion for coaching and the process he used to build a culture of excellence. He could work a room as well as anyone I have ever known. He will be missed dearly but never forgotten. He was Arizona’s John Wooden.”
Jack Murphy, current associate head coach who was also on Olson’s staff at one point: “When you were alone with Coach O, he was a man of few words. His presence did all the talking. In practice he was precise and disciplined. You couldn’t take his system and make it work anywhere else. He was the system. When he walked out of the tunnel, you knew we were winning. The confidence he brought to our state, not just our teams, our university, our city, but our State, cannot be denied. He was never an assistant coach, on any level, he was always in charge and the wins and losses were on him. Coach O wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
As we celebrate his life and remember all of those victories, I am most thankful for the friendships and memories that wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for Coach. He brought players, coaches and manager together to form a family, and we are all blessed to be a part of it.
Every story being told tonight, whether ending in tears or laughter, is his legacy and that will last long after today. A great man, whose light will always shine in the Arizona sun. Love you, Coach.”
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Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Photo by Ryan Kelapire
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Photo by Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports
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Virtual Lucas Havrisik in disbelief after missing a last-second kick
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Danielle O’Toole | Jade Hewitt Media
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Via @TimHealyASU on Twitter
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