New Arizona Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez said he would like to sign at least one mid-year junior college quarterback, but he was unable to land Cody Sokol from Scottsdale Community College.

Rodriguez moved fast to get Sokol to take an official recruiting trip to Arizona in mid-December, but Sokol then took a visit to Iowa. He committed to the Hawkeyes on Saturday.

“I just felt like Iowa was a better fit,” Sokol told Marc Morehouse of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

“There were a lot of emotions about going to Arizona because my family lives here and I know a lot of people at the school, but I tried to take the emotions out of it and just decided that where I fit in the best was at Iowa.”

He also told the newspaper that he preferred to play in a pro-style offense.

Sokol passed for 3,807 yards and 43 touchdowns, with 10 interceptions, this season for Scottsdale.

Rodriguez said he would like to bring in at least two quarterbacks in this recruiting class. His only scholarship quarterback is senior Matt Scott following the transfers of Tom Savage and Daxx Garman.

The Wildcats coast home, taking a 68-51 victory over Arizona State at McKale Center.

Coach Sean Miller improved to 4-1 against ASU and has won three in a row in the rivalry against Herb Sendek, whom he worked for at North Carolina State from 1996 to 2001.

Jesse Perry led the UA in scoring with 16 points.

Arizona forced 19 turnovers and held ASU to 36 percent shooting (18 of 50).

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Arizona has slowed the pace down, taking time off the clock, but ASU responded with a 7-0 run that cut the lead to 58-45. That made the crowd a bit nervous, although UA hit back and took a 63-47 edge with 3:58 to play.

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ASU has 33 points with 10:32 to play. Can Arizona keep the Devils to 44 or less? The last time that happened in the series was 1949.

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Sean Miller still working hard. He emphatically calls for four subs after Arizona gives up a long rebound. Even with the minor transgression, the Wildcats lead 51-29 with 11:13 to go.

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Counting football, ASU is going to fall to 0-2 against Arizona wearing all-black uniforms.

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Could Mike Stoops be wearing crimson and cream next season? Photo by Jason O. Watson-US PRESSWIRE

Former Arizona coach Mike Stoops spent all week hanging out with his brother Bob.

That could soon become a more permanent arrangement.

Bob Stoops’ Oklahoma team defeated Iowa 31-14 in the Insight Bowl in Tempe on Friday night, and ESPN sideline reporter Heather Cox said near the close of the telecast that there were “strong indications” Mike Stoops soon would be rejoining the Sooners’ coaching staff.

Mike Stoops was OU’s defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator from 1999 to 2003, becoming one of the nation’s hottest assistant coaches before taking the Arizona head coaching job for the 2004 season.

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Nick Foles passed for a conference record 361.17 yards per game this season. Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

It doesn’t much matter right now if former Arizona Wildcats quarterback Nick Foles is rising or falling on the NFL draft boards.

He will begin his first major post-graduate exam in a few weeks — and that will start to tell the tale.

Foles is headed to the Senior Bowl, his father Larry confirmed Friday, where he will get a chance to work out for a week in front of scouts from every NFL team. The game will be played Jan. 28 in Mobile, Ala.

“He just has to go out and prove himself,” Larry Foles said.

“I told him, ‘It’s all you now.’ You can’t say this or that anymore. Now, it’s how well you prepare and how you do.”

For the record, Foles’ stock does seem to be on the rise. NFLDraftScout.com — which supplies analysis for CBSSports.com — recently elevated Foles to the 49th-best prospect nationally and the fifth-best quarterback available.

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Gabe York at the Boost Mobile Elite event in August. Photo by Gary Randazzo, Wildcat Sports Report

Arizona basketball signee Gabe York is “the guy that simply finds a way to score,” said ESPN recruiting analyst Dave Telep.

Telep was quoted in an ESPN.com story on York earlier this week. York, a 6-goot-1 guard, then scored 38 points for Orange (Calif.) Lutheran High School in the semifinals of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Orange Holiday Classic on Wednesday night.

York scored big again a night later, with 30 points — including a 3-pointer at the end of regulation that sent the game into overtime — as his team defeated Foothill High 68-60.

In the process, York became the school’s career leading scorer with 1,922 points.

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Derrick Williams salutes the student section after his game-saving block against Washington. Photo by Chris Morrison, US-PRESSWIRE

Coaches coming, going and staying. NCAA champions. Memorable games. Unforgettable players.

The year that was in Arizona Wildcats athletics was packed with storylines, good and bad, and we’ll be buzzing about some of it for decades to come.

The longest-standing sports bloggers at TucsonCitizen.com — myself included — voted for the biggest UA stories of the year, trying to sort out individual accomplishments from big games from off-field news … balancing big sports with those that don’t get as much coverage.

Here are the results. The top 12 Arizona Wildcats sports stories of the year:

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The Tucson Padres have purchased the rights to the Casino Del Sol All-Star Game, which will be played in Tucson for the first time Jan. 16, the team said in a release Tuesday.

The Padres will own and operate the game, which is good news inasmuch as it falls under the auspices of Mike Feder, the Triple-A team’s vice president and general manager.

The Padres purchased the rights from AZ Sports Group LLC, which had listed former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach as a co-manager. Leach appeared in Tucson in November at a press conference to officially announce the all-star game’s move to Tucson.

Leach, however, was hired earlier this month as the new coach at Washington State.

The game, which was played in Tempe’s Sun Devil Stadium last season, would now seem to have committed local ownership.

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Solomon Hill leads Arizona in three major statistical categories. Photo by Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona Wildcats forward Solomon Hill was selected as the Pac-12 Player of the Week on Monday, his second such honor this month.

Hill led Arizona to a pair of victories last week, including scoring a career-high 23 points vs. Oakland in what coach Sean Miller said was the junior’s best game as a Wildcat.

Hill followed up with 13 points, seven rebounds, four assists, a block and a steal in a victory over Bryant.

“He has as big of a motor to be a great player as maybe any kid I’ve been around,” Miller said last week after the victory over Oakland.

“Once in a while that motor can work against him because he wants it so bad that he almost self-imposes pressure. But Solomon is always ready. And if things don’t go well, he takes it hard.

But his work ethic and his desire, the way he practices, it’s just great to see the way he played.”

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From left, Arizona freshmen Chelsea Goodacre, Shelby Pendley and Hallie Wilson were teammates on the U.S. junior national team. Photo from ASA Softball

Two Arizona Wildcats softball players helped the United States win the Junior Women’s World Championship on Saturday.

The U.S. team defeated Japan 4-1 in the gold medal game in Cape Town, South Africa.

Arizona freshman Hallie Wilson played centerfield and hit leadoff for Team USA — roles she is expected to fill this season for the Wildcats — and hit .440 for the event (12 of 25).

Wilson had a double, a triple, two home runs and stole two bases. She also walked eight times, giving her an on-base percentage of .571.

Cather Chelsea Goodacre mostly played in reserve. She was 4 of 10 with a home run, scoring four runs. She also stole a base.

Arizona freshman shortstop Shelby Pendley, who also made the U.S. junior team (19 and under), could not play because of an ACL injury suffered while playing in an exhibition game in the summer.

Team USA went 7-0 in pool play before defeating Australia 7-4 in the quarterfinal round. The U.S. team lost to Japan 9-0 in the semifinals, but worked its way to the gold medal game by beating Chinese Taipei in the bronze medal game.

The Americans were powered in the final game by a grand slam by Cheyanne Tarango (University of Tennessee) and the complete game of Lauren Haeger (Glendale Deer Valley High School, University of Florida).

Arizona State sophomore pitcher Dallas Escobedo went 4-0 in the tournament with a 2.37 ERA.

Sean Miller is hoping for better play and more toughness on the glass. Photo by Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

It’s not a case of if Arizona is going to get manhandled by certain teams; it’s a case of how much.

“Tonight,” Wildcats coach Sean Miller said after a 71-60 loss to Gonzaga in Seattle, “was the most we’ve been manhandled.”

Gonzaga’s big front line dominated from the start. The Bulldogs led 22-4. They had 16 offensive rebounds. They got 25 points and eight rebounds from power forward Elias Harris. They forced Miller to play big most of the game, scrapping his three-guard lineup after falling into a familiar early hole.

This is Miller’s conundrum: He doesn’t have a roster in which all the parts fit together.

If he wants to go big with a “true” center, still-raw freshman Angelo Chol and junior Kyryl Natyzhko don’t offer much in the way of scoring. If he wants to go small with more scoring potential, he doesn’t have much in way of a rebounder — at least against a team like Gonzaga.

“With certain lineups on the court, we’re really struggling to rebound,” Miller said on his postgame radio show on KCUB 1290-AM. “With other lineups, sometimes we’re struggling to score.”

What is Miller to do?

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