Apr 2, 2014; Sacramento, CA, USA; A dinosaur on the court during a timeout between the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers during the second quarter at Sleep Train Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Editor’s Note: It has been brought to our attention that the Cretaceous period and the Jurassic period are two separate periods of pre-history. In our defense, our knowledge of the dinosaur timeline is based solely on the now defunct Kingdom of the Dinosaurs ride at Knotts Berry Farm.
Summertime is tough for Arizona Wildcats Basketball fans in Tucson. Living on the surface of the sun would be bearable if you could watch Arizona Basketball. Unfortunately basketball doesn’t start until November.
So what does this Tucsonan do to get out of the sun and deal with having no basketball to watch? He goes to the movies. With Jurassic World destroying box office records I thought, how could I link dinosaurs to Arizona Basketball?
Why not talk about every Jurassic Park movie and at the same time talk about how the Arizona Wildcats fared during those years? If that wasn’t cooky enough, let’s loosely compare characters from the films, to players on each team.
The one thing you can count on in a Jurassic Park film is that most of the characters don’t respect the dinosaurs and that causes them to be killed. I did my best to find enough smart characters in these movies, but man it was hard.
Beware: SPOILERS ahead!
Next: 1993 : Jurassic Park
1993 Jurassic Park
The one that started it all is by far the greatest in the franchise. What made it so great is you didn’t see the dinosaurs very often. Stevie Spielberg took a play out of his Jaws playbook and scared us with dinosaurs by not actually showing us the creatures that much. When they finally appeared, it was a huge payoff.
This movie was scary. It had goat legs falling on top of vehicles, Samuel L. Jackson lost his arm, and Newman from Seinfeld died a slow and painful death because a cute dinosaur became un-cute in a hurry, and spit poison in his face.
1992-93 Arizona Wildcats 24-4
The 1992-93 season for the Wildcats was also scary.
The regular season was not scary at all. They dominated the Pac-10 with a 17-1 record and finished the regular season 24-3.
Going into the tournament the sky was the limit. The Cats were a No. 2 seed and were matched up against the No. 15 seed Santa Clara Broncos.
Arizona was looking to go on a huge run for Chris Mills‘ final NCAA Tournament.
That’s when things got scary. For the second straight year Arizona lost in the first round and all was not well in Mudville.
Arizona Wildcats
But Lute and the boys had the last laugh. The next season, with the best backcourt in the country, the Cats went all the way to the Final Four, before losing to the eventual National Champion Arkansas Razorbacks.
Player/Character Comparisons
Kevin Flanagan/Brontosaurus
Flanagan was one of the most popular bench players of the 1990’s. It didn’t hurt that every girl in Tucson was in love with him. He broke a thousand hearts when he wed former Wildcat and current NFL Network reporter, Alex Flanagan.
So why would I compare Kevin Flanagan with the Brontosaurus near the beginning of the movie? Because that Brontosaurus has Dr. Allen Grant and his counterpart Dr. Ellie Satler, looking up in complete awe the first time they see the creature. It is much like the looks, the girls of Tucson gave Flanagan when he was a Wildcat.
Damon Stoudamire and Khalid Reeves/Velociraptors duo
It wasn’t until the 1993-94 season that Stoudamire and Reeves really dominated as a duo but they were still pretty good in 1992-93. Their quickness and killer instinct on the court mimicked the Velociraptor duo in the first film.
Near the end of the movie, the Raptors teamed up and cornered animal trainer Robert Muldoon before eating him alive. Stoudamire and Reeves teamed up as a duo to eat up Pac-10 defenses from 1991-1994. Oh yeah, and Stoudamire played for the Toronto Raptors, so I guess that was an easy one.
Joseph Blair/Dr. Ian Malcolm
Blair Down is Joseph Blair‘s mantra. Dr. Ian Malcolm prefers to subscribe to chaos theory. Either way they both are amazing guys with an cool sense of style and humor.
In the pantheon of Arizona Basketball big men I feel that Blair is often overlooked for what he accomplished on the court. In his Arizona career he averaged 10 points and 7 boards a game. What always impressed me about Blair was how well he ran the floor as a big man on fast breaks.
Have you ever seen the videos Blair and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson put together? I imagine these videos are an underground cult phenomenon in Tucson.
Sometimes they were hard to watch but I couldn’t ever turn away. Like Ian Malcolm, Blair was sometimes nutty and weird, in the videos. It probably didn’t help that Rondae is a nut too.
In Jurassic Park, Malcolm is seriously injured by a T-Rex.
According to the above video(1:41), Rondae Hollis-Jefferson injured Blair on the forehead and the long scare remains. In this scenario, Hollis-Jefferson is the T-Rex.
If you keep reading you will see why I compare Hollis-Jefferson to the T-Rex in Jurassic World.
Next: 1997 : The Lost World
1997 The Lost World
Most sequels are not better than the original, and this is certainly the case with the Lost World, but there are still plenty of reasons to get somewhat excited for this movie.
The first reason is they brought back Dr. Ian Malcolm.
The second reason is the Lost World brought us three T-Rex’s. Unfortunately for Malcolm’s gang, his girlfriend decides to take an injured baby T-Rex away from its home (she wanted to fix its leg) and bring it back to where the gang was staying.
Bad idea but fun to watch on the big screen when Mom and Pop T-Rex show up and want their kid back.
The coolest part of this movie is when a large group of humans decide to walk through long grass full of Raptors all while a leader of the group is yelling “Don’t go into the long grass!” It’s one of the best scenes in the four films, but it’s not good enough to make this sequel Toy Story 2 or Empire Strikes Back.
1996-97 Arizona Wildcats 25-9, National Champions
The franchise may have not delivered in the sequel but I didn’t care because the Cats won the National Title! It’s been 18 years and I still can’t believe it, even though the National Championship clock in my bathroom says the Cats really won in 1997.
Arizona became the first team in history to defeat three No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament on their way to winning the championship.
One of my favorite memories from that tourney run is when Jason Terry jumped onto the scorers table and celebrated after the Cats surprised the heavily favored Kansas Jayhawks in the Sweet 16.
Player/Character Comparisons
Bennett Davison/Kelly Malcolm
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Bennett Davison had the best two-year run a Wildcat has ever been a part of. He was a junior college transfer that made an immediate impact for the Champion Wildcats.
During his two years in the desert, the Cats were 10-1 in the NCAA Tournament. His athleticism shined bright, always jumping out of the gym before throwing down a sweet jam.
Kelly Malcolm (Ian Malcolm’s daughter), also showed some terrific athleticism in the Lost World.
In probably the worst scene of the franchise (start watching at 2:18 on the video above), Kelly decides to fight off a raptor by climbing up some bars and doing some gymnastic tricks.
Earlier in the film we learned that Kelly had recently been cut from her gymnastics team back home. I’m guessing her coach was not Bela Karolyi, because Kelly proves she has major gymnastic swinging skills, when she does a perfect spinning routine, all while kicking a raptor through a broken window.
Kelly pulled off a perfect routine until the dismount (2:46 on the video above). After all that swinging and kicking, Kelly was fatigued and it showed when she hit the ground. It was an OK landing, but I think Olympic judges would probably give her a 9.5 at best, for the entire routine.
A.J. Bramlett/Roland Tembo
A.J. Bramlett had a breakthrough at a practice in February of 1997. He shattered a backboard and it caused him to have stitches in his left arm. After the backboard incident, Bramlett went on a rampage.
When the NCAA Tournament started Bramlett became even more of a rebounding machine down low. A.J. averaged a double-double during the first four games of the tournament and when it was all over he averaged over 10 boards a game in the Cats six tournament games.
Much like Bramlett in the NCAA Tournament, Roland Tembo was fearless in the Lost World.
Tembo was a distinguished animal hunter who came to the island mainly to hunt the ultimate prey.
The T-Rex.
What was amazing about this was Tembo was hunting a T-Rex with only a big shotgun. When his gun was tampered with he ended up taking out the T-Rex with a tranquilizer gun.
Next: 2001 : Jurassic Park III
2001 Jurassic Park III
This one is a stinker. One redeeming thing about this movie is Dr. Alan Grant returns.
Basically a kid is stranded on an island full of dinosaurs and his parents lie and trick Dr. Grant into helping them track the kid down.
2000-01 Arizona Wildcats 28-8, National Title Game
This squad made it to the Final Four for the third time in school history. It might have been the most talented team Lute Olson ever had at Arizona.
Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, Luke Walton and Loren Woods all played in the NBA. Add college standouts Micheal Wright and Jason Gardner into the mix and the Cats had a mean rotation.
Arizona Wildcats
If it wasn’t for a Luke Walton broken thumb and a Gilbert Arenas shoulder injury, the Cats might have added a second national title to their resume.
The Cats fell to the Duke Blue Devils in the title game 82-72.
Player/Character Comparisons
Jason Gardner/Dr. Alan Grant
Jason Gardner’s jersey hangs in the rafters at McKale Center, but he is the least talked about player who has had that honor given to him.
When the Cats won the title in 1997 in Indianapolis, it made an impression on a young Jason Gardner because it took place in his hometown.
Gardner was a bulldog who was a minutes eater. He helped continue the legacy of point guard U by being an extension of Lute Olson on the court.
In Jurassic Park 3, Dr. Alan Grant played the role of point guard and without his help no one would have left the island alive.
Josh Pastner/Trevor Morgan
Josh Pastner was a wiz kid when he was at Arizona. When he first got here, Arizona fans thought he was just the team’s No. 1 cheerleader. They eventually found out there was more to the kid than that. In just two and a half years Pastner received his degree, and it seemed he collected a new degree every three weeks until he left Arizona.
Pastner never lost a game he played in while at Arizona. He may have been an extra coach on the bench, but Lute Olson was not going to give him a chance to play unless the Cats were ahead by a very comfortable margin.
Pastner’s undefeated streak lives because Coach Olson decided not to put him in the game when the Cats got humiliated at LSU in the 1999-2000 season.
Like Pastner, Trevor Morgan was also a wiz kid. Morgan found a way to survive on an island full of dangerous dinosaurs for eight weeks before help arrived.
It is surprising in the movie how smart Trevor is because his parents played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni do everything they can to try to be eaten by dinosaurs. Miraculously they survive until the end of the film when the military arrives.
Morgan’s smarts are also apparent when he confesses to Dr. Grant that he has read at least two books in his life. The first one by Dr. Grant. The other by rival Dr. Ian Malcolm.
Next: 2015 : Jurassic World
2015 : Jurassic World
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Things get back on track in this one. We get to see a fully functional dinosaur theme park with neat rides and a Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville restaurant.
This time InGen decides to create a new dinosaur that will wow park guests. I guess in 20 years people are not impressed with ‘regular’ dinosaurs anymore.
There are still lots of dumb characters in this one, but luckily there are just enough smart ones left at the end that make for a happy ending, for those who survived.
The last 15 minutes are great. Imagine the final 15 minutes of Jurassic Park on steroids. Except now some of the Dinosaurs are helping the humans against the big bad genetically modified dinosaur.
2014-15 Arizona Wildcats 34-4, Elite Eight
What a fun year. The boys made us proud. Having T.J. McConnell for one more season made the Arizona Basketball locomotive continue to run smoothly.
Having a pure point guard for a second straight season made Coach Sean Miller‘s job less stressful, but after watching Coach Miller for six years, he still seems pretty stressed.
NBA first rounders Stanley Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson made this another classic Arizona team for the record books.
The Cats won the Pac-12 and gave Coach Miller his first Pac-12 Tournament Championship.
Player/Character Comparisons
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson/T-Rex
Rondae did a great Andre Iguodala impersonation by coming off the bench part of last season.
Unlike Iguodala, Hollis-Jefferson did start quite a bit, but when he came off the bench it gave the Cats that extra spark the needed to keep pace in the Pac-12.
Coming off the bench this past season, should prepare Rondae for what’s next in his basketball journey in the NBA as a an awesome role player that can dunk over anybody in the league.
I can’t wait to see Rondae kill it next year for the Brooklyn Nets. His defensive tenacity should allow him to play in the NBA for many years to come.
So why did I compare Rondae to the T-Rex in Jurassic World?
Because the T-Rex comes off the bench at the end of the film. The T-Rex is let out of its cage/dwelling by a guy in a control room wearing a sweet retro Jurassic Park shirt.
Ron Howard’s daughter then pulls an Ian Malcolm and lights a flare to coerce the T-Rex into battling the Dinosaur antagonist, that has reigned terror down on Jurassic World.
With a little help from some T-Rex friends with a lot of teeth, the genetic dino DNA beast ends up dinner for a hungry sea monster.
One cool side note. The T-Rex in Jurassic World is supposed to be the same T-Rex from the original Jurassic Park.
T.J. McConnell/Owen Grady
With T.J. McConnell running the point, the Cats were a great team this past season. If T.J. was not on the squad the Cats would have instead just have been a good team.
Like Gardner was for Olson in 2001, T.J. was an extension of Coach Miller on the court in 2014-15.
T.J. was nearly perfect at point guard this past season. His 3 to 1 assist to turnover ratio and two steals a game were top-notch. When the Cats needed offense he obliged with 10 points a game.
Owen Grady (Star Lord) was a great point man in Jurassic World. He found a way to control those terrifying raptors and used them to help the T-Rex, take down the bad guy.
Sadly if Grady was not around, the park would have been even more doomed, and no humans would have survived.
Grady did not have a Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Stanley Johnson, Brandon Ashley or a Kaleb Tarczewski to help him.
If Grady was killed the only component character left on the island that could have done anything, was in a control room surrounded by dinosaur toys.
BearDown!