With the Holiday Season upon us, we thought we would like to bring you our list of Holiday wishes for our Wildcats this year!
Holiday foods, decorations and gifts galore, once again, it is the most wonderful time of year! For anyone doing any last minute shopping, or creating wish lists, we feel these would be the perfect gifts for Wildcats fans this year.
With so many things you could ever want and hope for, forget those boring socks, and ugly sweaters, Arizona victories are what we want and more!
At Zona Zealots, we comprised our list of things we would want most as fans. Granted your wishes may vary, but we figured this would be fun for all.
Let’s see what made our list, and tell us what your wishes are!
Here we go…
A Return to the College World Series
Omaha and Arizona Baseball! That has a nice ring to it, huh?
Jay Johnson enters his third season with the Wildcats, with two successful seasons under his belt thus far. Arizona has a talented group returning in 2018, and after having been eliminated in the Round of 64 last year, the Wildcats look to improve on last years’ finish!
If you may recall, the Wildcats were an errant call away from potentially winning their fifth World Series just two seasons ago against Coastal Carolina. Ouch, this one still hurts!
they won you one run... Thanks ump pic.twitter.com/c9ZiIGauhi
— Eric Townsend (@EricDTownsend) June 30, 2016
Well, now it’s time to get that one back!
The roster is talented enough, the coaching is there, and everything could fall into place for another special run to Omaha.
Arizona will rely heavily on the efforts of Cal Stevenson, Nick Quintana, Cody Deason and Alfonso Rivas among many others, and in 2018, this really shouldn’t be a stretch in expecting the Wildcats to contend.
So for this season, we wish the Wildcats to once again return to Omaha, and restore order in the College Baseball world!
How about a World Series for Softball?
It’s definitely been quite the dry spell for the Softball team! The Wildcats have been close a few times in recent years, with some very talented rosters, but lady luck has not been in our favor.
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So how about a championship in 2018?
It certainly has been long overdue. Arizona’s last World Series appearance was 2010, and their last championship was in 2007 when Taryne Mowatt was pitching.
Fittingly enough, Mowatt has returned to Tucson, where she will be the Wildcats’ new pitching coach.
Arizona will be without ace pitcher Danielle O’Toole who graduated last year, but things are still quite bright in Tucson. The Wildcats will have a competitive roster once again, and we imagine them making a deep run in the tournament!
Our wish, however, is the Wildcats can complete the journey, and once again be crowned National Champions!
A Win Against Purdue in the Foster Farms Bowl
It was a rather successful 2017 season for the Arizona Football team. Pundits picked the Wildcats to finish last in the Pac-12 South, but instead, we finished third!
Arizona Wildcats Football
Some of the success can be attributed to the stellar play of Khalil Tate, but it wasn’t all him. Arizona had significant contributions from Tony Fields II, Colin Schooler, Shun Brown and many others.
The year didn’t entirely end how we had wanted as the Wildcats lost to rival ASU in the final game of the regular season. Regardless, the Cats won seven games, and are going bowling!
Arizona travels to the Bay Area to take on Purdue in the Foster Farms Bowl, and nothing would delight us more than to see Tate dazzle us fans one more time in 2017, hopefully helping guide Arizona to a bowl victory!
If they play as well as they are fully enjoying riding the trolley cars and singing to their favorite tunes in the streets of San Fransisco, it should be a great game.
Building momentum would be huge heading into 2018, with the potential for a big year next season! So here’s to wishing for a win against the Boilermakers in a few days!
A Heisman Trophy for Khalil Tate
Okay, so a much more decent wish. Tate was spectacular to watch in 2017. His meteoric rise got many buzzing about a potential Heisman candidacy despite the limited action.
Well, for this next wish, how about a full season of Tate, and a 2018 Heisman run? Maybe, maybe not.
He’s a great athlete to watch, and his exciting playmaking ability leaves nothing to be desired.
To an extent, the Wildcats’ success this year has been contingent on Tate, and we see that continuing in 2018 as well. He definitely provides another element to this offense, and when he is out there, it just seems to move the football faster.
Give him another year in the system, running exclusively as THE starter, and not the back-up, and that could be a recipe for success next season.
The competitor in Tate just seems to be getting better and better with each game he plays.
Our wish is for a healthy, junior season, and a Heisman Trophy!
Let’s enjoy some highlights and start the campaign early! #Tate4Heisman
For Shareef O’Neal and Brandon Williams to play in Tucson next year
It’s no secret there is a dark cloud over McKale. The ongoing FBI investigation has many avid fans worried and anxious over what the future holds in Tucson.
Moreover, that worry has extended on to the recruits as well.
While the Wildcats don’t know their fate, we can’t help but think that uncertainty has some recruits a bit leery about the Cats.
A few top recruits have backed off Arizona a bit, aside from current commits and signees, Shareef O’Neal and Brandon Williams. There is still another step they need to take, sign their National Letters of Intent.
Our wish for 2018, is for O’Neal and Williams to make it to Tucson. Hopefully, nothing too damning comes of this, and the talented duo dons the ‘red and blue.’
A Win over ASU on December 30th
If you haven’t heard by now, it’s that ASU Basketball remains one of the few, remaining unbeaten teams in College Hoops, and are ranked higher than our Wildcats at this point.
Pundits have been putting the Sun Devils ahead of us for a couple of weeks, and perhaps rightfully so. Arizona lost three games in Atlantis early in the season, and ASU has played well thus far, knocking off then No. 2 ranked Kansas Jayhawks, and then No. 15 Xavier just a few weeks ago.
Their guard play has been stellar enough for the over-inflated ego of their fanbase, to call themselves ‘Guard U.’
While beating ASU is always great, nothing would delight us even more at this point than to give the Sun Devils their first loss of the season, and bring the folks in Tempe back down to a healthy reality that there is only ONE Point GUARD U.
An Arizona Basketball Final Four and Championship
Perhaps the easiest and biggest wish to choose! To say this being overdue is a HUGE understatement!
It has been 16, soon to be 17 years since the Wildcats have made it to the Final Four, and now over 20 years since our last Championship victory!
Before the season start, many pundits were picking the Wildcats as an early favorite. Never mind the team stumbling out of the starting gate, as Arizona seems to be a bit back on track.
With a healthy roster, a veteran Allonzo Trier, and arguably the best big man in all of College Basketball this season, there is a lot to like about this years’ squad.
Sure, it will be as tough as ever, but if there was a year for Arizona to make the magical run, this is the years to do it! So for our last and final wish, we want the see the Wildcats on top of it all!
Our fans have been dying for this, and if this were to happen, Wildcat Nation would rejoice everywhere!
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At Zona Zealots, we would like to wish a happy holiday season to fellow Wildcats fans everywhere. Hopefully, you have enjoyed our list, and if there is something you’d like to see as a wish, let us know! Bear Down, Arizona!