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– Karlie Burris was part of Salpointe Catholic’s powerhouse girls basketball teams 20 years ago, teams built around all-state center Sybil Dosty. Today, after a long and impressive climb, Burris is the first-year head coach at Portland State. She becomes just the second Tucsonan, following CDO and UA basketball player Sue Darling, to be a Division I head coach. Burris played collegiately at Portland U, and then coached at Utah State, Cal-Fullerton, NAU and Seattle before spending the last five years at UNLV. Burris has some Tucson blood on her staff; Annalise Holthaus, daughter of Pima College women’s basketball coach Todd Holthaus, is the lead team manager at PSU.

– No, former UA president Robert C. Robbins didn’t get the vacant job as president of LSU. Robbins reached the final three before LSU hired the president of nearby McNeese State. It would’ve been ironic to see Robbins get the LSU job and be responsible for the $54 million buyout to ex-Tigers football coach Brian Kelly. Robbins knows how it works. At Arizona, Robbins had to pay a total of $15 million to fired football coaches Rich Rodriguez and Kevin Sumlin, the latter being a Robbins-directed hire who turned out to be possibly the worst football coach in school history.

– I had to laugh while watching the player introductions of the Washington Commanders in last week’s Monday Night Football game. Starting tailback Jacory Croskey-Merritt introduced himself and said “Arizona� when prompted to identify his college team. Croskey-Merritt played one game at Arizona in 2024 before being sidelined by compliance/eligibility issues. Yet he played four years at Alabama State and another at New Mexico, during which he rushed for 1,190 yards. He also spent time at Ole Miss before transferring to Arizona. He is a leading example of the lack of loyalty in college sports.

– Tucsonan Trevor Werbylo has stepped aside from his competitive golf career and returned to Tucson to work in the private sector outside golf. Werbylo, 27, is only one of two Tucsonans to have full-time PGA Tour playing privileges, along with Sahuaro High grad Rich Barcelo (2004-07). Werbylo, a Salpointe grad, played in 34 PGA Tour events in 2023, earning $317,000. A year earlier, he finished No. 20 in the Korn Ferry Tour yearly standings, earning his PGA Tour card. He won the Lake Charles Open in that season. At Arizona from 2017-21, Werbylo led Jim Anderson‘s team to the 2021 Pac-12 championship and was a second-team All-American.

– It will be good to see Miles Simon back as a TV basketball analyst this season. He has been hired by ESPN to work Big 12 games beginning this week. Arizona’s 1997 Final Four MVP is also a scout for the NBA Atlanta Hawks. He worked for ESPN as a studio analyst and on-site analyst from 2008-17. Simon was a Phoenix Suns assistant coach from 2023-24.