Zona Zealots Power Rankings – Batcat Madness Edition!
By Jeff
Another installment of the Zona Zealots Power Rankings which, as we loosely define it, is a snapshot of how former, current, and even semi-related Arizona Wildcats are doing in the world. There’s no rubric, no fancy algorithm, and very rarely will there even be a logical justification for these rankings so please keep that in mind. The comments section below or the Zona Zealots Facebook page would be appropriate places for you to respond if you feel so inclined. This week’s edition features an expanded list from Top 5 to Top 10!
The last edition of the ZZPR can be found here.
1. The Batcats! – The Arizona Wildcats baseball team has reached the championship series of the College World Series unblemished. Their success has been well chronicled by Zona Zealots so I’ll send you in that direction for the details but all I’ll say is that this team is a lot of fun to watch, not just because they’re talented but because they’ve got that special “it factor” that teams get sometimes. The last UofA team I watched that had this kind of “it factor” was the ’97 National Championship basketball team. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’. They start a best-of-three series against the two-time defending CWS champion University of South Carolina tomorrow (Sunday) at 5pm Tucson time.
2. 3-Star Football Recruits – If you’re a 3-star football recruit, there’s a 96% chance that you ≥≥received and then accepted a scholarship offer from Rich Rodriguez within the past three weeks.
3. Greg Byrne – So far, pretty much every decision he’s made has turned to gold…the latest example of which is moving the Batcats from the boring non-beer-serving Sancet Stadium to the awesome beer-serving Hi Corbett Field.
4. Mike Dunlap – The former UofA associate-interim-whatever-head-assistant basketball coach was surprisingly and deservedly named the head coach of the Charlotte Jordans Bobcats this week.
5. Hi Corbett Field – OH. EM. GEE. Hi Corbett and JD Ameritrade are like so totes twinsies! LOL! ROTFL! BFFs4L! XOXO! TTYL! If I see that stupid graphic comparing the two ballparks on ESPN one more time, I might snap.
6. Rich Rodriguez –Mike Stoops got raked through the proverbial cyber-coals every year because of his underwhelming recruiting classes and it finally caught up with him. RichRod has been signing the aforementioned 3-star guys left and right for the past few weeks but has done so in relative obscurity. Maybe it’s the distraction of the CWS that has provided cover but I have a feeling the natives will start get restless eventually. The “RichRod is just looking for guys like himself” storyline can only last so long in this town.
7. Nick Ross – The standout UofA high jumper was recently named the Pac 12 Field Athlete of the Year.
8. Brad Mills – The former UofA and current LA Angels pitcher and his wife Annie are celebrating the birth of their son Nixon. Congrats, guys!
9. Sean Miller – Even in relatively quiet week for Miller and a relatively busy week for everyone else, he still cracks the Top 10. Expect him to be a staple on the ZZPR.
10. LaRoses – Did you know that recently retired UofA men’s golf coach Rick LaRose is the only coach in NCAA history to win both a men’s and women’s NCAA golf championship? Did you know that recently retired UofA Deputy Director of Athletics Rocky LaRose was the starting shortstop on the Lady Batcats’ first Pac 10 conference championship team in 1979 and also the UofA Homecoming Queen in 1978? Did you know that these two UofA legends seemingly bear no relation to one another at all?
Not ranked this week: Andy Garcia Lopez, Juron Criner, David Hasselhoff, Kyryl Natyazhko, Brigetta Barrett, UofA coeds on ESPN, Karl Eller, Panda Express orange chicken, CWS strikezones, the Wildcats LB corps, Old Main sinking, Park & Ride, Larry Ray, Jesse Perry, copper football helmets