• A decision on what Arizona coach Lute Olson will do this season is coming soon, according to athletic director Jim Livengood.
The matter is deeply personal and private and doesn't have an end date, according to multiple sources close to the situation. So, it will be up to Olson to decide if he wants to take the season off, or whether or not he wants to give it a go sometime this month and see how he can handle the stress of coaching again. I have been told multiple sources the stituation that he is not retiring.
Olson has earned time to sort through this personal matter, and the reality is that not everything is the public's business. Livengood said that there is obviously a demand for more definition of Olson's troubles.
"But we can't, we just can't," Livengood said. "Yeah, it's ambiguous right now, but he just needs time and it has to be at his pace. That's the key, and we're all sensitive to that."
Olson returned to practices earlier this week. He was at shootaround prior to the game against Cal State-Fullerton on Wednesday and he may do the same in advance of Sunday's game against Texas A&M.
"There is a privacy, a sensitivity that we owe to him," Livengood said. "We have to be patient. I know that's hard for all of us at this time of the year, being 30 days out from the conference season. But we must."
The unknown fulltime return for Olson has been hard on the players and staff. But having his presence back in small doses has helped, according to those that I have talked to recently. He has been engaging at practice. But Olson must decide if he can commit to being a head coach fulltime and stick with the decision, and then he'll have to deal with the weight of a private matter that isn't going to just wash away immediately. He will apparently make that decision soon. But Arizona, and specifically Livengood, is not going to pressure him.
• Xavier coach Sean Miller can't rave enough about the defensive improvement of
Stanley Burrell. Burrell held
Eric Gordon in check (he had 20 points but 12 of the 20 came at the free-throw line) in the 80-65 win over Indiana last week. Then, Burrell limited Oakland's
Brandon Cassise to 1 of 5 shooting after making 10 3s in two games against Duquesne and Michigan State. He was 0-for-3 on 3s against Xavier in the Musketeers' 93-68 win over the Grizzlies on Wednesday.
"He's our Romain Sato," Miller said, comparing Burrell with the former XU guard. "He's a fifth-year senior who bought into everything. He's really ready to set the tone for us."
Xavier is on a roll right now. The Musketeers beat Kent State by 13 (just before Kent's 41-point win over Saint Louis), took out Indiana by 15 and then beat Oakland by 25. Next up is Belmont -- a winner at Cincinnati and Alabama -- and then Creighton, Cincinnati, Arizona State and Tennessee. The schedule lightens up for one game against Delaware State before a stretch of Kansas State, Virginia and at Auburn prior to the A-10 schedule starting on Jan. 9. Can you say powerful RPI? Xavier should be fine come selection time with this slate. The one loss, at Miami of Ohio by two, will turn out to be a good loss since the RedHawks look to be the class of the MAC.
• USC won't get 6-7 forward Leonard Washington at semester like it originally thought earlier in the preseason. Washington didn't qualify academically and will now have to matriculate in the fall of 2008. The Trojans were hoping that Washington could provide a bruising force for the Pac-10. But Davon Jefferson's emergence as a scorer, and the likely return from injuries of Marcus Simmons and Mamadou Diarra, should negate any need for Washington.
• Next to Kent State's 41-point drubbing of Saint Louis, maybe the most surprising margin of victory was George Mason's CAA-opening 85-38 rout of Drexel on Thursday night. The Patriots are on a roll at 6-1, with the only loss being to Villanova in Orlando.
And the Patriots are handling this slate without injured senior forward Darryl Monroe, who was counted on to improve his 6.1 points and 3.9 rebounds a game. The biggest surprise may be the contributions from 6-7 sophomore Louis Birdsong, who is chipping in with 4.9 points and 3.4 boards a game but added 13 points in the win over South Carolina. George Mason won't have an easy time going to Kent State (Dec. 8) but outside of that game, the Patriots are done with significant games save BracketBuster in February.
• The other big surprise was Hampton's 64-55 victory over VCU on Thursday night at home, considering Hampton shot just 1 of 12 on 3s and VCU made 8 of 18. The number that crushed VCU was 21 turnovers.
Andy Katz
