FanHouse ArizonaWildcats

Now, this is just getting silly. Both Jeff Goodman at FOX Sports and Gary Parrish at CBS Sports are reporting that Xavier head coach Sean Miller has turned down an offer to be the Arizona head coach.

Miller, apparently took a charter flight to New Mexico on Sunday morning to meet with Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood along with the Arizona president and a booster about the job. The offer was rumored to be as much as $15 million over seven years. He then flew back to Cincinnati that same day.

Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel has been with the school for three years. For the third straight year, Capel will get a raise and extension after another successful season and plenty of interest from other programs -- again. Looks like Arizona fans can cross one more name off the list.

Capel disclosed that he has agreed to another raise and extension while in Detroit for the Final Four. He did not give any details on the money or length. The only reason why he decided to make it known was to stop the reports that he had considered the Virginia job, then Georgia and finally that he had been in negotiations with Arizona. This despite no program actually contacting Oklahoma for permission to speak with Capel.

Well, that was authoritative.

Not surprising, though, that the top-seeded Big East regular-season and tournament champion would have no problem whatsoever with a 12-seed from the Pac-10. This was pretty close to a bye into the Elite Eight for Louisville. For the Wildcats to have had a chance, everything would have had to go perfectly for them. And the Cardinals' entire game is based on making sure things don't go perfectly for their opponent.

Last night's action had one tight game, a blowout that tightened near the end, a walloping, and a game that never became a blowout though the outcome was never in doubt.

Tonight, Louisville takes on that, uh, Cinderella team from the desert in Arizona. Syracuse and Oklahoma should be a lot of fun in the early games. Later tonight Kansas and Michigan State looks like it should be gem. Also North Carolina gets Gonzaga, the original West Coast Cinderella that has not been that for some time.

Stop on by around 6:30 PM ET to talk about the action from yesterday and the games tonight. Plus, there is always the coaching carousel and what happens next at Kentucky.

If you are a fan of prominent passing attacks, then tune in Saturday night as WSU faces Arizona down in Tucson. Both teams love to air it out, and while the Cal-Oregon game gets the hype this week for Pac-10 offensive fireworks, the Cougars and Wildcats aren't to be overlooked.

Arizona leads the Pac-10 in passing offense, at just over 318 yards per game. But WSU is third, at 282 yards per game, so, doing a little math, that's 600 total passing yards combined that is a regular day at the office for these teams. With the game starting at 7 PM pacific time, Bill Doba quipped "We might not get back until Monday".

However, often in match-ups like this, it's not necessarily the obvious strengths that will decide this one, but more so it's how teams handle their weaknesses that factor in the most. The most troubling thing from a Cougar angle is that WSU's defense, especially against the pass, has been not only among the worst in the conference, but one of the worst pass defenses in the nation so far this year. As we pointed out earlier this week, WSU is 101st in the country in passing yards allowed, and dead last at 119th in opponent third-down rate, allowing an unfathomable 57.9 percent. That third down rate is especially troubling, as everyone knows, in that it shows how long the opposing team can keep their offense on the field. That's really bad news in that it also plays keep-away from the WSU offense, which is clearly the strength of the team in 2007.

With perennial BCS contender USC at the top of the Pac Ten, it is hard to draw the line between "contenders" and "pretenders"... In 2006, the Pac Ten faced the very real possibility of having five teams tied for fourth place in the conference--and 2007 looks like there could be eight bowl-eligible schools fighting for six mediocre bowls.

While these schools aren't quite worthy of being grouped in with Stanford among the conference "dregs" you won't see any of them traveling to Pasadena in January, either.

Oregon Ducks

Last year: 7-6 overall, 4-5 Pac Ten WHY THEY'LL WIN: The Oregon Ducks have consistently been "contenders" for the Pac Ten crown but have consistently come up short in recent years. They have brought the spread-option to the Pac Ten and will continue with QB Dennis Dixon at the helm in 2007. Rivals' eyes are still adjusting to those wacky uniforms. The Ducks get conference favorites USC at home the week after the Trojans travel to South Bend for what could be a trap game. WHY THEY WON'T: Oregon has consistently challenged for the Pac Ten crown but have consistently failed to pull it out. The Pac Ten has allegedly improved the quality of their referees this year, which won't give the Ducks that little something extra that propelled them ahead of Oklahoma in 2006. PROGNOSIS: Oregon may not even be the best team in their own State, let alone their own conference. They should be able to hang with the Conference contenders, but on paper there are just too many schools that seem better than them.

At this point, the tournament is 12 hours away. More importantly, the brackets for your office pool and various online challenges are due in the next 8-11 hours. So any little bit of information can change one game, even if it probably won't make much of a difference beyond the first round.

Well in the Midwest 8/9 game, you might want to shift to Purdue as the defense of Arizona took another hit.

Arizona reserve guard Daniel Dillon was suspended from competition Wednesday, a day after his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving became public.

Dillon, plays maybe 10-11 minutes a game, mainly for defensive purposes. It's the role he has done well, but contributes little else.

It's not like this is a major change in the potential outcome to the millions of brackets. The winner of Arizona-Purdue gets Florida on Sunday. Call it a hunch, but not many brackets probably have Florida getting knocked out in the second round.

That's not a sentence I anticipated typing today. The 72-year-old Wildcat head coach spent some time this afternoon vehemently denying rumors that he had Parkinson's Disease.

"I have gotten some calls about rumors and certain radio stations running some things about me having Parkinson's, which is a complete lie," Olson said. "I have physicals like everyone else does. There is absolutely no medical indication of any type of problem."

"There is absolutely no truth to that statement. If it has been repeatedly on radio stations then I will take the necessary actions that I need to get this stopped," he said. "It is a vicious, vicious rumor. If I need to I will get my physician to make a statement. I don't think anybody deserves that rumor to be circulating."

I hadn't heard the rumors ... I'm not in Arizona, I'm not listening to their radio shows. But if it's true (and I'm certainly taking Lute's word for it here) that is a messed up rumor to start. Dear Lord ... who does that? It doesn't get much lower than starting a rumor that a 72-year-old man has Parkinson's.

If you wanted to start a rumor that Lute Olson was impotent, or couldn't control his bladder, or got his false teeth stuck in a prostitute in Tijuana ... fine. Not the nicest thing in the world to do, of course, but playful, not all that believable, and ultimately harmless.

But Parkinson's Disease? That's just vicious. Whoever started these rumors should probably prepare themselves to burn in eternal hellfire.

Arizona Wildcats head coach Lute Olson says that forward Marcus Williams is headed to the NBA after this season, and that Chase Budinger is staying at Arizona. He didn't leave a lot of room for interpretation, either:

"At this point, [Williams] needs to go and do his thing," Olson added. "I think he's looked at doing that for a full year. He's been great this season as far as with the team is concerned. Very team-oriented."

"Chase is definitely staying," Olson said. "He's told everybody that can be told that there's no way he's going to the NBA."

That might be for the best. This year's draft class is stacked, and even though nbadraft.net projects Budinger as a Top-10 selection (really?), it might pay off even bigger to wait a year. I'd never advise someone who's a certain lottery pick to forgo the draft, but next year's draft shouldn't be nearly as deep as this one.

And again, I'm with The Big Lead on this ... I just don't know if I can buy that Budinger's a surefire lottery pick. At the next level, I don't know if he's got the strength to play the three, and I don't know if he's got the quicks to play the two. Those things can be developed, though.

He should be one of the names on next year's pre-season Naismith watch list.

Although UCLA sports one of the best run defenses in the nation, when the Arizona Wildcats come to the Rose Bowl this weekend, they'll have to do what the Bruins failed to in 2005--contain quarterback Willie Tuitama.

Although we'd never recommend the approach taken by LSU--which left Tuitama ineffective for the next two games--if the Bruins continue to run a conservative offense, I'm sure some thugs will be thinking about it.