Arizona Hoops Now a Mid-Major

Congratulations Arizona, you are now a mid-major program. That is the only conclusion after Arizona canceled a home-and-home with North Carolina. Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood tried to put a happy-spin on the announcement, saying that it was a friendly agreement between Roy Williams between and Lute Olsen.

Livengood obviously didn't want the new coach to be burdened with an automatic loss next season. (Or any of that stuff you see in the picture on the right.) Now the troubled program is going to look to add "guarantee games" against lesser opponents, looking for some easy wins.

The only problem is, Arizona is more Washington Generals than they are Harlem Globetrotters right now. How low are they thinking of scheduling because many mid-major programs such as St. Mary's, Santa Clara, San Diego, BYU and Cal State would love to take a guarantee game to come to Arizona. Especially after that debacle against Alabama-Birmingham. You can already imagine Livengood trying to hook up a mid-major opponent in the future.

"Coach Bennett, this is Arizona athletic director Jim Liven -- "

"Hey Jim, we'll take the, game."

"Oh, wow. Thanks coach Bennett, but you didn't let me finish. We need to talk about payment."

"Sure, we'll pay you $250K to come out there."

"No, coach Bennett, we, uh, pay you."

"Right, right, you pay us. Sure thing, Jim. How many of these games can I get?"

Get used to it, Arizona. You are a mid-major program now. Though, that might be too generous. Arizona has games against UNLV and at San Diego State next year. Getting a split would be a miracle. The only recourse is to scrape the bottom of the RPI barrel to get a game and some wins.

The good news Wildcats fans is that nobody will notice now when you lose in the first round of the tournament. Though, you probably won't have to worry about making the tournament anytime soon, either.