Kyryl Natyazhko grabbed a lot of rebounds for Ukraine; can he corral more at Arizona? Photo by WildcatSportsReport.com

It will be interesting to gauge the progress of all the young players on the Arizona Wildcats basketball team when the team reconvenes for practice in October. I’m most eager to see sophomore center Kyryl Natyazhko.

SportsIllustrated.com gave Natyazhko a stamp of approval Thursday when it rated him as the best collegian at the under-20 European Championships. Natyazhko averaged 17.2 points, 8.4 rebounds per game and 32 minutes per game for Ukraine.

Arizona coach Sean Miller told me earlier this week that Natyazhko “did remarkably well at the European Championships,” but the coach also pointed out that he thinks the positive experience extended beyond basketball.

“Nobody knows how Kyryl feels when he doesn’t see his family for a year at a time,” Miller said.

“The first thing that trip did was allow him to go home and see his family and friends. I think that alone is a really big part of the summer for him.”

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Jennie Finch won an NCAA-record 60 consecutive games at Arizona and led the Wildcats to the 2001 national title/Photo by Jerry Lai, US Presswire

Sometime in the mid 1990s, Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea took notice of Jennie Finch at a national tournament.

“I would say it would have been at 16-and-unders that I spotted her and started to follow her,” he said Tuesday. “She was a skinny little thing who could throw hard.”

Candrea and everyone in softball knew that Finch was going to be good. But how good? Nobody could have expected Finch to do what she did — at Arizona and then with Team USA, using her good looks, athletic ability and sunny personality to eventually transcending the sport nationally and internationally.

And, now, she is ready to close a chapter.

At 29, Finch announced Tuesday that she will retire from competitive softball next month. She will have a final go-round with Team USA at the World Cup of Softball in Oklahoma City this week, and then will wrap up the National Pro Fastpitch season with the Chicago Bandits.

“This whole career has been way more than I ever even imagined or dreamed,” Finch told The Associated Press. “The opportunities that I’d be able to enjoy and appreciate and be a part of, it’s been incredible.”

Finch said she wanted to devote more time to her family — husband Casey Daigle (a pitcher in the Houston Astros organization) and 4-year-old son, Ace. She said she would like to have more children.

“I’m happy for her and just very proud of the fact that she played at the University of Arizona,” Candrea said. “She has done so much for the sport. She always treated people right and did things the right way.

“It’s a sad day for softball because she was definitely good for the sport.”

I have more about Finch at FoxSportsArizona.com: Softball losing more than a pretty face

(slideshow after the jump)

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Cecil is entering his second season as the defensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans.

The Arizona Wildcats’ ol’ No. 6, hard-hitting safety Chuck Cecil, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame over the weekend.

KOLD Channel 13 has some footage from the event … as well as the holy grail of UA highlights — Cecil’s 106-yard interception return against Arizona State in 1986.

It’s hard to see that clip too many times.

The Hall of Fame selection committee announced this enshrinement class back in April 2009, when the Tucson Citizen still had a print edition.

Here is part of my story for the newspaper from back then, starting with quotes from former UA assistant coach Duane Akina:

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The second printing of the UA schedule poster won't include now-departed Delashaun Dean, No. 18 on the left.

In an interview this week with Fox 11′s Vinnie Vinzetta, Arizona football coach Mike Stoops said that “outside of Autzen Stadium, I think we have the best stadium in the Pac-10 when you look at the overall environment. Hopefully, that will improve and we can have the same environment that they do in Oregon.”

The Zona Zoo deserves a lot of credit for making Arizona Stadium a much crazier place that it used to be on game day, and, hopefully, the student section now has learned its lesson about prematurely rushing the field.

A full Stoops interview will appear on Fox 11′s Sports Force on Sunday night. …

Arizona quarterback Nick Foles was selected last week to the watch list for the Davey O’Brien quarterback award, which only seems right. There are 30 names on the list, and Foles is probably around 20 to 25 if you had to rank everyone in order.

Foles is not taking a second-semester summer class, but he did in the first session, when his routine also included about two hours in the weight room with strength coach Corey Edmond, followed by working on quarterback fundamentals for 15 to 30 minutes, and then some one-on-ones and seven-on-seven drills with his teammates in the late afternoon. …

Foles told us this week that in the wake of the transfer of senior receiver Delashaun Dean that inside receiver David Douglas is now working at the “Z” outside position in informal workouts. The pre-fall depth chart lists Travis Cobb (who made no impact in the passing game last season) and junior college transfer Dexter Ransom at “Z”.

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Ross Oltorik, running for a touchdown for Cincinnati Moeller High in 2007, is a passer first but said he doesn't mind taking a hit./Photo by Malinda Hartong, Cincinnati Enquirer

Ross Oltorik, a former pitcher and walk-on quarterback at Ohio State, is getting a fresh start at Arizona.

Oltorik arrived in Tucson earlier this week after getting all the paperwork cleared and will start summer classes on Monday. He’s already settled in to a living situation, rooming with junior college transfer linebackers Derek Earls and Paul Vassallo, who arrived for the spring semester.

Oltorik is looking to dedicate himself to football after suffering a rotator cuff injury before the 2010 baseball season. He said he had been scheduled to be the Saturday starting pitcher for the Buckeyes.

“A week before the season started, I tore my rotator cuff. Once that happened, I came to the conclusion that it’s time to focus on being the best quarterback I can be … and do I want to do that at Ohio State or somewhere else?

“I had a couple of meetings with Coach (Jim) Tressel — he’s a great guy, he’s been very good to me — and he said he was full on scholarships until January.”

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Chuck Cecil is mobbed by fans after the 1986 victory over Arizona State/Tucson Citizen photo

The Arizona Wildcats will be retiring the football jerseys of seven former players at the game against USC on Nov. 13.

Those seven are: linebacker Ricky Hunley, safety Chuck Cecil, placekicker Steve McLaughlin, cornerbacks Antoine Cason, Darryll Lewis and Chris McAlister, and defensive tackle Rob Waldrop.

Before you say, “Where’s Tedy Bruschi?” understand the criteria: According to university policy, jersey honors are reserved for athletes who were national players of the year or inducted into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame.

Cason and Lewis won the Thorpe Award for defensive backs. McAlister won the Mosi Tatupu Award for special teams play. McLaughlin earned the Groza Award, given to placekickers. Waldrop won the Outland Trophy for the top interior lineman and the Nagurski Award as the defensive player of the year. Hunley and Cecil have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

(Cecil is part of the class that will be enshrined Saturday. You can watch the event streaming live from 5:15 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tucson time at www.footballfoundation.org, www.xosdigital.com or www.collegefootball.org.)

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Arizona athletic director Greg Bryne would like to see Arizona Stadium full, no matter the opponent.
Photo by Chris Morrison, US Presswire

For many years, the Arizona Wildcats have had the same general philosophy in scheduling non-conference football games: One gimme, one mid-major level foe and then a marquee opponent.

Coach Mike Stoops, whose team completes a home-and-home series against Iowa this season, previously has talked about easing the program’s strength of schedule, especially after the Pac-10 went to a full round-robin of nine games. That’s tough enough, he figures.

I asked new Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne on Tuesday about his philosophy on football scheduling. Would he like to see the Wildcats play a major BCS-conference program every season?

“I want to challenge our thought process on that a little bit,” Byrne replied.

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Various images of the new Pac-10 logo have appeared on the internet (and on the painted field at Oregon's Autzen Stadium), but a source sent this official logo (not allowed to be used yet by member schools) to TucsonCitizen.com

The Pac-10 athletic directors will have a conference call Wednesday — and will meet in Los Angeles on July 30 — but Arizona’s Greg Byrne doesn’t expect a decision to be made by then on how the league will realign with expansion.

“I think there are a lot of issues we all have to work through,” Byrne said Tuesday in a press conference at McKale Center to discuss various matters. “And it’s a critical decision for everybody involved.”

Utah will join the league from the Mountain West Conference for the 2011-12 school year, with Colorado set to come on board the following season, although it’s still possible the Buffaloes could move up that timetable.

Byrne estimated there are six to eight different scenarios for creating football divisions.

“How many are really legitimate, I don’t know,” he said. “But there are choices, that is for sure.”

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Former UA linebacker Antonio Pierce, here celebrating the New York Giants' victory in Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, will have new duties in front of the camera this season.
Photo by John David Mercer, US Presswire

NOTE: This is part of the weekly “Nothing But The Notes” column at WildcatSportsReport.com, one of the partners in the TucsonCitizen.com Sports Network. For notes on basketball recruiting, incoming freshman guard Daniel Bejarano, sophomore big man Kyryl Natyazhko and more, check out the link at WildcatSportsReport.com.

Now-retired New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce announced last week he is joining ESPN as an analyst, yet another ex-Wildcat in a prominent TV role.

Tedy Bruschi joined ESPN after retiring last summer, former Suns general manager Steve Kerr will become a lead NBA game analyst for TNT next season, Glenn Parker is a college football analyst for Versus, and Joe Magrane works for the MLB Network.

Moreover, UA grad Dan Hicks is one of NBC’s announcing stars. Sean Elliott was at ESPN for a while; now he works on local San Antonio Spurs telecasts. Tom Tolbert was an NBA analyst with NBC, ABC and ESPN (he was part of the broadcasting team of the 2003 NBA Finals with Brad Nessler and Bill Walton) before becoming solely a radio personality in San Francisco.

Miles Simon, after his contract as an assistant Arizona basketball coach was not renewed in the summer of 2008, worked last season as a college basketball analyst for Fox Sports Net.

All in all, an impressive roster of ex-Cats in the TV biz.

Who’s your TV favorite? Anybody we missed? …

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Arizona pitcher Kyle Simon has been doing so well in the Cape Cod summer league for college players that when he allowed one earned run in eight innings Thursday night, his ERA went up.

Simon, who had received no run support — none — in his first three starts, got his first victory for the Orleans (Mass.) Firebirds, who defeated the Y-D Red Sox 6-1. Orleans was shut out in his first two starts. In his third start, not only did the Firebirds fail to score, they didn’t get a hit.

Staked to some runs on his side of the scoreboard on Thursday, Simon allowed five hits, striking out four and walking one. His ERA increased from 0.50 to 0.69. He has allowed only 16 hits in 26 innings in the wood-bat league.

As a sophomore at Arizona last season, Simon led the Wildcats in victories (he was 8-6), starts (17) and innings pitched (109 2/3). He had a 4.27 ERA.

Simon’s teammate at Arizona, outfielder Steve Selsky, hit his second home run in 21 games for Orleans. He is hitting .282 this summer.