Indiana coach Tom Crean, hired six months ago, joked he's "looking for a good therapist" after taking over a team that is picked to finish last in the Big Ten this season.

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As he prepares to hire Arizona's next basketball coach, UA athletic director Jim Livengood couldn't punch up a more telling test case than Indiana's Tom Crean.

After the once-mighty Hoosiers basketball program imploded last season and was left with just one scholarship player (who averaged 1.6 points), Indiana paid Marquette $650,000 to release Crean from his contract. It then agreed to a 10-year, $18 million deal with Crean.

Barring the pursuit of someone like John Calipari, those numbers appear to be realistic market figures as Livengood seeks to replace Lute Olson.

The damage at Indiana is comparable to what the final damage at Arizona figures to be: Indiana lost two recruits who opted out of letters of intent; two more went early to the NBA; two transferred elsewhere and two were dismissed from the team.

Said Crean, whose team is expected to finish last in the Big Ten: "I'm looking for a good therapist.''

But after just six months on the job — and this is the part Arizona hopes its new coach duplicates — Crean signed a recruiting class last week that is ranked No. 6 nationally by rivals.com. Crean signed Top 100 players from Alabama, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina.

The Hoosiers of 2008-09 will be fortunate to win 10 games. The Wildcats of 2009-10 will similarly struggle to win a handful of games.

But Crean has created a feeling of hope and given the Hoosiers energy in record time. Keep that in mind as the Wildcats inevitably struggle this season and, perhaps, lose at McKale on Tuesday night against Alabama-Birmingham.

Marana team-roping star Colter Todd, who finished second in the National Finals Rodeo a year ago with fellow Tucsonan Cesar de la Cruz, told me in December that he didn't plan a long PRCA career.

At 24, Todd said his priority was to spend more time with his two young children (Madilyn, 4, and Colter Jr., 4 months) and wife Carly, which isn't possible on the never-ending road of a world-class rodeo athlete.

So when Todd and de la Cruz tied a world record and earned $15,000 each in last week's Wrangler Pro Rodeo Challenge in Dallas, Todd told reporters he would not compete on the 2009 PRCA circuit and would return to Marana to be with his family.

"It's not fair to my partner," Todd said, "but I just didn't want to be out here."

Before he leaves, Todd will join de la Cruz at next month's NFR in Las Vegas in an attempt to win the world championship that barely eluded them last year.

They have both earned $81,699 in official money this season, ranked No. 5 overall in team roping.

In the first game of his senior basketball season at Boise State, against Pacific, Desert View High School and Pima College grad Mark Sanchez led the Broncos with 21 points Friday, a career high. As a sub, Sanchez averaged three points for the Broncos last year. He is now a starter. … En route to Seattle to interview for the vacant Seattle Mariners managerial job, former UA All-America infielder Chip Hale sat on the tarmac at the Tucson airport last week and missed his connection to Washington. His interview with Seattle administrators was thus delayed and held at night. Hale, 43, who led the Tucson Sidewinders to the 2006 Class AAA championship, has had the look of a big-league manager for years. He is one of at least seven candidates in Seattle, but the fact that he is in the mix suggests that his days as the Diamondbacks' third base coach are numbered. … Sidewinders manager Bill Plummer won't be accompanying the club to Reno in the spring. He has been reassigned within the D-backs' minor-league system and replaced by Brett Butler. The initial excitement of Class AAA baseball in Reno is such that 800 Nevadans made appointments to choose their season tickets at the still-unfinished downtown ballpark last week; more than 2,700 season tickets have been sold.

Sunnyside High School grad Nick Gallick enters his junior season at Iowa State ranked No. 2 nationally in the 141-pound wrestling class. Gallick was an All-American as a Cyclone sophomore. … Ironwood Ridge grad Trent Anderson has made ASU's basketball team as a walk-on. The 6-7 forward sat out the 2007-08 season while recuperating from knee surgery. He played on Karl Pieroway's 2007 IRHS state runner-up team. … Luke Walton and Jerryd Bayless find themselves in unfamiliar positions in the NBA: on the bench. Walton has played just 19 total minutes in the Lakers' first eight games. Bayless hasn't gotten off the bench in seven of Portland's first nine games. … Tim McWilliam, a Catalina High School grad who played outfield on some of the best Pima College baseball teams in history, received a big promotion by the Detroit Tigers last week. McWilliam goes from area scout to West Coast scouting cross-checker, which is sort of like being promoted from sergeant to captain. … Baseball America magazine ranks dominating UA right-hander Jason Stoffel as the No. 12 overall college draft prospect for next June. Teammate Preston Guilmet, a senior right-hander, is listed at No. 93. … UA basketball fans won't like it when they realize the starting time for Monday's game against Florida Atlantic is 9 p.m., and Tuesday's tip time, probably against UAB, will be at (ugh) 9:30 p.m. The Wildcats chose to inconvenience their fans and bow to programmers at ESPN. We will probably see more empty seats at McKale Center for those two games than any time since 1985.

The long-gone Chicago White Sox's offer of $5 million to break its Tucson spring training contract and relocate to Glendale immediately is as good as it's going to get. Now it's up to Pima County Supervisors to move carefully, with input from the Pima County Sports and Tourism Authority, to make the best use of that $5 million. That means it has a chance to build a state-of-the-art youth facility to be available to Tucsonans for at least four months of the year, and to elite traveling teams for a similar period. The legal people will soon determine if a two-team spring training setup will permit the Rockies and Diamondbacks to abandon their leases. Interpretations of the contracts are fuzzy. In the meantime, the sports authority, which has worked resourcefully behind the scenes, continues its pursuit of a replacement for the White Sox. Never say never. … Tucsonans Ben Kern, Chris Nallen and Michael Thompson all failed to advance into the final stage of the PGA Tour's Qualifying School in 72-hole events last week. Thompson and Nallen failed by six strokes in Georgia. Kern was seven strokes away from qualifying in Florida. … Lam Chih Bing, who has been in contention (and in the lead) at the ongoing $5 million Singapore Open, is an Arizona grad. Lam played for Rick LaRose's UA team in the late 1990s, but was rarely in the starting lineup while getting a degree in finance in three years at Arizona. He since has been playing on the Asian Tour.

A memorial service for former UA head football coach Bob Weber was held in Tucson on Saturday morning. Weber's wife, Connie, said he wanted his "celebration of life'' to be held on a football Saturday.

Weber, who coached at Arizona from 1967 to 1972, and was head coach the final four seasons, died of cancer two weeks ago. He was 75.

"I was the athletic director at Trinidad (Colo.) Junior College when Bob coached us to the national championship in 1962, and he was a wonderful associate," said Charlie LaTuda, 83, who still lives in the Colorado town.

"We were driving the four hours from Trinidad to Denver for conference meetings after the 1962 regular season and had a horrible accident. Two horses had gotten through a fence and over a cattle-guard and were on the highway when we came around a corner. We slammed into one of them and Bob fractured his skull. He got out of the hospital about a week later and insisted on coaching in a bowl game, which was played in Henderson, Texas. He never complained or expected sympathy. He was a tough guy."

The Diamondbacks laid off 31 employees recently and then launched contract negotiations with Randy Johnson. Ultimately, they declined to meet Johnson's price, which is probably close to $8 million for one year.

A shell of his former dominating self, the Big Unit, who will be 46 next year, needs five victories to reach 300. What he doesn't need is more money.

Johnson will now continue as a baseball vagabond, pitching for the highest bidder. He has earned $162 million in his career, $102 million of it as a Diamondback.

Wouldn't it have been refreshing had Johnson backed off his demands and shown some loyalty? Can you imagine a news conference in which the Unit said, "I am accepting baseball's minimum salary ($390,000) next year and am glad to do so. The D-backs and their fans have treated me well. Why would I want to get my 300th victory anywhere else?''

Dream on.