Softball's Lowe, Hollowell named to U.S. National team

Junior-to-be Caitlin Lowe and senior-to-be Alicia Hollowell were named to the 18-member U.S. National Softball team yesterday, joining former Wildcats Lovie Jung and Jennie Finch on the squad.

Lowe joins the team coming off her second straight first-team All-America selection after batting .510 as a sophomore. Hollowell, earning her third-consecutive All-America selection – she was a second-team selection this season after posting back-to-back first-team nods – broke the all-time Arizona strikeout record, surpassing the mark previous held by Finch. Hollowell finished the 2005 season 31-9 with a 0.88 E.R.A.

UA head coach Mike Candrea is the National team's head coach and one of a half-dozen coaches that selects the team.

Lute Olson All-Star Classic returns in August

The Lute Olson All-Star Classic, including a fundraising dinner and charity basketball game featuring former UA stars will return August 13-14 for the second time in three years.

The event will honor Arizona's 1988 men's basketball team, which, led by Sean Elliott and Steve Kerr, earned the school's first of four Final Four berths.

A celebration dinner and silent auction will be held at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 13 at the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa, with a regulation alumni basketball game – entitled the Lexus-Infinity Shootout – concluding the weekend's festivities with a 1 p.m. tipoff time.

Dinner tickets are $175 per person, while costs of game tickets vary. More information on the dinner and silent auction can be obtained by calling (520) 621-2331, while game tickets go on sale to the general public on July 18. Game ticket information can be obtained by calling (520) 621-CATS.

Olson: New NBA age minimum bad for college game

The National Basketball Association players union and the league's owners agreed to a new labor contract yesterday, increasing the minimum age to be eligible to play in the league from 18 to 19.

UA men's basketball head coach Lute Olson was critical of the move, however, which he says could handcuff college programs into deciding whether or not to offer a scholarship to a player who might only be with the team for one year.

"I think it's a compromise that accomplishes very little in terms of limiting the numbers of early entrants," Olson said in a statement yesterday. "A lot of the guys coming out now are at least 18 years old, very close to 19, which leaves colleges in a difficult position.  If you recruit such a player, it could turn into just a one-year commitment."

Olson doesn't find the move logical across the board.

"Very seldom does one year of college benefit either the player or the program," he added, citing Syracuse University's Carmelo Anthony, now with the NBA's Denver Nuggets as one of the lone exceptions. "But it does create a problem by having to continually recruit behind players and deal with speculation about who might be leaving and who might be staying.  Much more so than we're getting now."

"I'm disappointed.  This is just a stop-gap measure.  It gives the NBA the ability to say that they did something about the problem, but it doesn't realistically address the problem or the effect it has on college basketball."

- compiled from staff and wire reports