Jeff Lund

Channing Frye had a good weekend, if you couldn't tell by the amount of articles and columns in Tucson.

While I wish to take nothing away from his dominating weekend öö particularly against USC öö Frye was one of many Wildcats recognized for their achievements.

Junior right-hander Sean Rierson was named the Collegiate Baseball/Louisville Slugger National Pitcher of the Week.

Rierson entered the weekend with a 14.14 ERA, pitched a two-hit gem in a 6-0 rout of UC Irvine. It was the first two-hitter for a Wildcat pitcher since 1986.

On the adjacent diamond, Alicia Hollowell tossed her second no-hitter as a Wildcat.

Oh yeah, and Hollowell is a freshman.

Last season Hollowell pitched to teenagers that worried about who to ask to prom.

Now she is hurling fastballs at scholarship athletes more concerned with wins and loses, or more particularly, belting Hollowell's next pitch over the center field fence.

Here is a little comparison for you between the All-everything Jennie Finch's start last season, and Hollowell thus far.

Finch 8-0. Five shutouts. .52 ERA. 54 innings pitched.

Hollowell 7-1. Five shutouts. .25 ERA. 55 innings pitched.

Hmm · yeah I think she's good ·

Senior guard Jason Gardner was nominated as one of the finalists for the 2003 Senior CLASS award, presented to the most outstanding returning senior in Division I basketball.

The award is a long time coming, and since it is in just its second year, very few people have probably heard of it.

Sadly, though Gardner is the most qualified because he does a lot of everything on the court, including being the biggest "money" player in the country this year (see final minute takeover against Texas and his team-leading 10 boards in a late game surge at USC), he will most likely not win this award.

Final voting is done by the national media committee, Division I college basketball coaches and nationwide fan balloting.

Here's the problem, Arizona basketball does not get the exposure of many of the teams that the other nominee's play for.

Prime time college basketball is played on ESPN, ABC and CBS.

Arizona has had one game on the ESPN network öö a loss at Louisiana State öö one game on ABC, and two on CBS.

The rest have been on mostly Fox Sports Net Arizona. Occasionally, they might make it to Fox Sports Net's national network, but they usually start after much of the country is already dreaming of Duke making another Final Four.

On a side note, I thought it was interesting how Fox Sports Net decided to stay with the Southern California/Arizona State blow-out to the boring end last week instead of switching to show No. 1 Arizona match up with UCLA.

As the Wildcats blew out the Trojans on CBS, the station switched games.

Kansas senior Kirk Hinrich, has been seen on the ESPN networks 13 times, on CBS three times and once on ABC.

Xavier center David West has been on the ESPN networks five times to date.

Both West and Hinrich, along with fellow Jayhawk Nick Collison, are up for the award as well.

So sports writers across the country that "cover" men's basketball are going to vote for Gardner, why?

Basketball fans from around the country öö who watched Arizona lose on prime time TV to LSU öö are going to vote for the point guard on the best team in college basketball, but have only seem him place a handful of times, why?

Gardner is surrounded by talent, without question. But there isn't one player in the country besides the 5-foot-10 point man that brings more court presence to his team's lineup. He is one of the best players in college basketball. That's not a secret, though all the intangibles and little things that would make him a worthy recipient are often being shut off ·

In case you were wondering, the Iditarod öö the Super Bowl of dog mushing öö starts in 10 days.