It has been a great couple of weeks for Arizona Wildcats teams.
Coach Rich Rodriguez hired his Defensive Line Coach
A good thing that gets better is a great thing. That’s what happened when Arizona Football hired their Defensive Line Coach to complete the defensive staff.
Coach Rich Rod‘s staff, which comes with a good pedigree on the defensive side of the ball, is now complete. Vincent Amey, a former ASU standout, has been named to the Wildcats defensive staff as the Defensive Line Coach. Talk about a flipping allegiances, he couldn’t have gone to work for a more controversial school several years ago.
Fans might wonder how he would feel about going up against the Arizona State offense next season in Tucson when the Sun Devils visit Arizona Stadium. There is no need to worry, it’s been done before. For example, Cal Bears Assistant women’s coach Charmin Smith played for Tara Vanderveer and coached the Stanford team under her, but she couldn’t be more into her Bears.
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Coach Amey was a four-year letterman when he played at Arizona State in college from 1994 to 1997. He started on the Defensive Line and played with a fiery passion. Coach Amey sees the same thing in his young men on the field. He’s one of the best choices that’s a perfect fit to an already great assembled defensive coaching staff led by Marcel Yates .
Last season, the Wildcats defense was one of those defenses you wouldn’t always want to write home about, they couldn’t put any real pressure on the quarterback. The Cats will hopefully learn how and be able to put more pressure the opposition’s quarterback with Coach Amey at the helm.
Next season, this team has a chance to go farther on the defensive side of the ball. The offense was pretty decent last season, the defense must catch up. Coach Rich Rod shook up his coaching staff, which took guts. He also has some new blood with freshman who recently committed, plus returning players will be able to go back to the positions they enjoy.
Amey came to Rich Rods football program in 2012. He was in charge of breaking down and analyzing film for his head coach. Coach Amey’s analytical skills will come in handy as he is already entrenched in the program and understands what the Defense has to learn to do. No more guessing,
Coach Rodriguez’s defensive staff for the coming seasons is complete and already coaching the team during spring ball.
Men’s and Women’s Basketball News
The Arizona Men’s basketball team has moved up in the polls after a pair of wonderful wins over UCLA and USC over Valentine’s Day weekend. The Arizona Fighting Wildcats have been able to withstand a lot of adversity throughout the season, and being ranked No. 12, the latest ESPN’s Top 25 Rankings and USA Today’s Coaches Polls polls show the results of their hard work rising five spots from No.17.
The Cats have been trending up on the Coaches’ polls mainly because a lot of teams have been getting upset weekend after weekend. Last night it was ‘business as usual’ as they took down arch-rival Arizona State in a 38 point blowout, 99-61.
The Cats have a chance to prove they are the best team in the Pac-12 if they take down Colorado and Utah, it would mean eight straight wins.
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Speaking of basketball games, the Arizona Women’s basketball team will tangle with the Washington schools this weekend. Coach Niya Butts‘ team is coming off a loss to Cal and Standford over the weekend in the Bay Area. Her team would love to beat Washington and Washington State on the road after a pair of double-digit losses. They need to break their eight-game losing streak.
Arizona fans need to get behind the team and show them that they believe in them. It would be excellent if the team can finish off this conference season with a couple of home and road wins. They’ll be looking to get things going by running the offense through JaLea Bennett and LaBrittney Jones.
The Arizona Wildcats will look to feed off their coach who at one point led her Cats on a 10-2 run at the beginning of the year. They have improved to 8-0 at home this season. The Cats should get come out of the games fighting in order to establish a defensive presence inside as well as offensively inside. They can score inside, but they seem to settle for jump shots which have killed them in their last eight losses.
Softball and Baseball News Recap
In Arizona Wildcats Softball news, the Cats have a Player of the Week in Junior Shortstop Mo Mercado. She batted over .600, with seven hits and scoring eight runs, all while slugging over 1.000. She also smashed out three doubles, four home runs and 11 RBIs in the Hillenbrand Invitational tournament over the weekend. What a way to break out early in a new year at a new position on the diamond and a new spot in the batting order. Congratulations Mo!
In Arizona Baseball news, the Cats are going to take on the Rice Owls in a three game series in the Season Opener according to Arizona Wildcats Baseball team page. Head Coach Jay Johnson and his Arizona Squad is looking to get things going as far as building around Golden Spikes Award Preseason nominee Bobby Dalbec.
The right-handed pitcher/third baseman is looking to separate hype from production. Coach Jay Johnson is expecting a lot from this youthful team to become what retired head coach Andy Lopez had built. Remember when the Cats won all their games en route to a College World Series berth and win over South Carolina? Yes, it would be great to do that again.
The Cats won game No. 1 and are hoping two sweep Rice.
This season for Arizona Basketball (Men’s), Baseball and Softball looks to be a tremendous one for the Arizona teams as they look to start on the right path to their respective postseason berths.
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