By Craig Degel
Arizona Daily Wildcat
November 24, 1997

Assistant coaches

For 18 of the last 23 years, Arizona head basketball coach has been able to look at his bench and see Jim Rosborough.

Rosborough, afectionately known as "Coach Ros" by the players, has been Olson's main assistant since Olson's days at Iowa and was recently promoted to associate head coach.

After Olson left Iowa for Tucson in 1983, Rosborough stayed with the Hawkeyes for a few years, then spent a year at Tulsa before getting the head coaching job at Northern Illinois. Though NIU went 28-56 under Rosborough, his first recruiting class went on to a 25-6 record and an NCAA Tournament berth.

By that time, though, Rosborough had rejoined Olson in Tucson. Rosborough's main focus is on defense and game preparation. He is also the coach of the Wildcats' perimeter players.

Rosborough and his wife, Kim, have two sons, Greg and John.

Assistant coach Phil Johnson has a resume listing that makes all Wildcat fans proud.

It was Johnson who devised the strategy to defeat the Kansas Jayhawks in the 1997 NCAA Tournament.

Johnson is somebody who knows a thing or two about handling big men like Scot Pollard and Raef LaFrentz. Johnson was an assistant under Iowa State coach Tim Floyd when the two were at the University of New Orleans. Their best player at the time was 6-foot-11-inch Ervin Johnson, who has played with the Seattle Supersonics and Denver Nuggets.

The stable of big men to play for Arizona in Johnson's five years in Tucson makes an impressive list as well. Joseph Blair, Ray Owes, Ben Davis as well as this year's crop of post men have all benefitted from Johnson's tutelage.

Johnson has compiled 136-70 record at different coaching positions on all levels of college basketball.

Rodney Tention became Arizona's newest assistant coach in the spring when long-time assistant Jessie Evans left for a head coaching position at Southwest Louisiana.

Prior to his arrival in Tucson, Tention was the head coach at Division II College of Notre Dame in Belmont, Calif.

Tention was a graduate assistant at South Florida in 1990 when the Wildcats faced that school in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Long Beach, Calif. The Wildcats won the game 79-67.

Tention played college basketball for the University of San Fransisco where he was a two-time captain and team most valuable player.

Tention was married over the summer to the former Rebecca Palmer. They have a one-year-old son, Justice.