mark lyons – Rush The Court

Pac-12 Burning Questions: Who Will Play Point Guard for Arizona?

Mike Lemaire — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 20:45:20 +0000

Even after graduating the team’s two leading scorers, Arizona has everything it needs on paper to dethrone Oregon and reassert itself as the best team in the Pac-12. The Wildcats have a redshirt senior who is likely one of the best on-ball defenders in the conference. They have a reigning member of the Pac-12 All-Freshmen Team who averaged nearly 15 points per game last season. They have a freshman wing with enough athleticism to put his own coach on a poster. They have a freshman stretch forward from Finland who can bang three-pointers and take awkward photos with local political [...]

Introducing the Preseason Pac-12 Superlatives

Connor Pelton (@ConnorPelton28) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:01:42 +0000

We continue our opening weekend coverage with predictions for the major superlatives throughout the conference from the Pac-12 microsite team.

Preseason All-Defense Team

Jordan Bachynski’s Shot-blocking Ability Makes Him A Lock For Our Preseason All-Defensive Team

G Nick Johnson, Jr, Arizona G Spencer Dinwiddie, Jr, Colorado G Mark Lyons, So, Arizona F Josh Huestis, Sr, Stanford C Jordan Bachynski, Sr, Arizona State

Johnson, now an upperclassmen with Arizona, averaged just short of 2.0 SPG in 2012-13 and had a knack of locking down an opponent’s top threat in big games. Starting in last year’s Charleston Classic, Dinwiddie stepped up his defense and led Colorado to a [...]

2013-14 RTC Class Schedule: Arizona Wildcats

BHayes — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:42:46 +0000

Bennet Hayes is an RTC columnist. He can be reached @HoopsTraveler. Periodically throughout the preseason, RTC will take an in-depth look at the schedules of some of the more prominent teams in college basketball.

Sean Miller’s fifth season in Tuscon could easily turn out to be his best. Despite the graduation of key seniors Solomon Hill (a first round pick in the 2013 NBA Draft), Mark Lyons, and Kevin Parrom – in addition to the surprising departure of freshman Grant Jerrett to the professional ranks, Miller has assembled the most talented roster that Arizona has seen in quite some time. A solid [...]

Arizona Post-Mortem

AMurawa — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:01:22 +0000

Now that we are officially in the offseason, it’s time to take a look back and evaluate each team’s 2012-13 performance. Next on our list: Arizona.

What Went Right

You know, after all is said and done, after all the chatter about his strengths and weaknesses, you gotta say that the Mark Lyons experiment turned out pretty well. Yes, the end of the season and a not-quite-buzzer-beating loss to Ohio State in the Sweet Sixteen is disappointing, and a fourth-place Pac-12 finish isn’t what was expected, but down the stretch, this team was clicking pretty well behind Lyons. With a dearth of [...]

Pac-12 M5: 03.29.13 Edition

AMurawa — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:01:13 +0000

Another day another UCLA coaching search update. With Shaka Smart officially out of the picture, talk about Butler’s Brad Stevens is starting to heat up. First, ESPN broke the completely obvious news that he is UCLA’s top target, while also briefly reporting that Stevens and UCLA were in contract negotiations. Later, FoxSports reported that Stevens was actually in Westwood in the middle of negotiations with UCLA. This report has not been confirmed anywhere, though. However, as should be expected of the calm and quiet Stevens, he’s not commenting on the job at all, other than to say he is still [...]

Rushed Reactions: #3 Ohio State 73, #6 Arizona 70

AMurawa — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 03:07:17 +0000

Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) is reporting from the West Region semifinals in Los Angeles, California, this weekend.

Three Key Takeaways.

It Was a Sea of Red in LA Tonight

Madness. After 39 minutes, 40 seconds and change, these two teams were dead even subsequent to a wild exchange of runs. One team killed it for the first 15 minutes, the other controlled the next 20-plus. And then down the stretch it was two prizefighters standing in the middlle of the ring throwing haymakers. Arizona’s seniors Solomon Hill and Mark Lyons threw together a barrage of scoring. Ohio State responded with play-making from [...]

How Far Can Arizona Go?

AMurawa — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:31:14 +0000

Three weeks ago, coming off an 0-2 road trip to Los Angeles, Arizona was just about ready to be left for dead. It’s not that a pair of conference road losses – one to a team in the middle of a 6-2 streak, the other to the eventual conference champion – were egregious, it’s that they were playing uninspired ball and none of the pieces were showing great cohesion. Mark Lyons was 6-of-24 that weekend with three assists while getting outplayed by Jio Fontan and Larry Drew II; Nick Johnson was in the midst of his regularly scheduled mid-season downturn; [...]

Previewing Ohio State vs. Arizona: Can Aaron Craft Stop Mark Lyons?

Deepak Jayanti — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:45:26 +0000

Deepak is a writer for the Big Ten microsite of RTC. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g.

The Ohio State Buckeyes haven’t lost since February 17 when they took a shellacking in Madison, but since that debacle they have ripped off 10 straight wins and have arguably been the hottest team from the Big Ten. Junior guard Aaron Craft is creating a new role for himself by controlling games in the critical minutes and proving that he isn’t afraid to take the big shot. But standing between the Buckeyes and another Final Four is an equally [...]

NCAA Regional Reset: West Region

AMurawa — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:31:16 +0000

Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) is the NCAA Tournament’s West Region correspondent.

The West Regional begins Thursday night in Los Angeles with Arizona vs. Ohio State followed by La Salle vs. Wichita State. The East Regional Reset published earlier today, and be sure to look out for the South and Midwest Regional Resets later this afternoon. Also make sure to follow RTCWestRegion for news and analysis from Los Angeles throughout the week.

Downtown LA is the Site of the West Regional

New Favorite: #2 Ohio State. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. In a region where the Buckeyes [...]

Rushed Reactions: #6 Arizona 74 #14 Harvard 51

AMurawa — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:35:10 +0000

Andrew Murawa is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from the Round of 32 game between #6 Arizona and #14 Harvard at the Salt Lake City pod this afternoon.

Three Key Takeaways.

It Was Great While It Lasted…

Physical Mismatch. It was clear just a couple of minutes into the game that Harvard was going to need to catch a lot of breaks to keep up in this game. As good as Wesley Saunders has been all year, he had no chance guarding Solomon Hill in the post. Harvard’s Kenyatta Smith was tough on Thursday against the New Mexico bigs, [...]

Rushed Reactions: #6 Arizona 81, #11 Belmont 64

AMurawa — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:13:09 +0000

Andrew Murawa is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the Round of 64 NCAA Tournament game between #6 Arizona and #11 Belmont in Salt Lake City.

Three Key Takeaways.

First Half Domination. It’s the same old song and dance for Belmont: great season, plenty of love on Selection Sunday as a possible Cinderella, then they come out and lay an egg in the tournament against a bigger and more athletic opponent. The Bruins turned in perhaps their worst half of the season on Thursday evening, grabbing just 9.1% of their own misses and only 50% of their opponents misses, while [...]

The Official RTC Bracket: Midwest And West Regions

KDoyle — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:08:23 +0000

We released the Official RTC Bracket for the South and East Regions earlier today — be sure to check that out if you need a refresher on our methodology for this exercise — and we’ll save you the fluff this time and cut right to the chase with the Midwest and West Regions. (note: our Final Four selections are after the analyses)

Quick Hitters From the Midwest Region

Advancing to Atlanta: #1 Louisville Round of 64 Upset: #11 St. Mary’s over #6 Memphis Later Round Upset: N/A Three Most Disputed Games: #5 Oklahoma State over #12 Oregon, #11 St. Mary’s over #6 Memphis, #2 Duke over #3 Michigan [...]

Bracket Prep: West Region Analysis

AMurawa — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:01:56 +0000

Throughout Monday, we will roll out our region-by-region analysis on the following schedule: East (9 AM), Midwest (11 AM), South (1 PM), West (3 PM). Here, Andrew Murawa (@amurawa) breaks down the West Region from top to bottom. Also, be sure to follow our RTC West Region handle on Twitter for continuous updates the next two weeks (@RTCwestregion).

You can also check out our RTC Podblast with Andrew breaking down the West Region, which will drop both on the site and on iTunes Tuesday.

West Region

Favorite: #2 Ohio State (26-7, 16-5 Big Ten). Not to take anything away from Gonzaga, a team and a program that should be very pleased [...]

Four Thoughts on the Pac-12 Tournament Semifinals

Connor Pelton — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:03:40 +0000

Day three of the Pac-12 Tournament is complete, and teams have made their may through the 12 team field to tonight’s championship game. The first team through was top-seeded UCLA, who used an 18-7 run late in the second half to erase an 11-point deficit and pull out a two point win over Arizona. In the second game of the night, Oregon took advantage of a tired Utah team and led the Utes by 14 at halftime before cruising to a 64-45 win.

Here are four things that stood out on day three of the Pac-12 Tournament:

UCLA Freshman Shabazz [...]

The RTC Pac-12 All-Conference Teams

AMurawa — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:02:57 +0000

Earlier today we released our picks for the conference awards, handing out, among others, Player of the Year to Allen Crabbe and Freshman of the Year to Jahii Carson. Not surprisingly, those two players lead our picks for the All-Conference team as the only two players to wind up on the first teams of all four of our voters’ ballots. While the Pac-12 goes a little insane this time of year and somehow decides to put together a 10-man All-Conference First Team, we’re going to follow, you know, the rules of basketball and field a five-man team (with a second [...]