Solomon Hill is a first-round NBA Draft pick. And Grant Jerrett, against all odds, was taken in the second round, albeit after an Arizona State player.

Hill, Arizona's do-everything forward was taken 23rd overall by the Indiana Pacers, a team that took the Miami Heat to the brink in the NBA Eastern Conference finals and might have just been one player away from winning that series. Could Hill, a 6-foot-6 senior, be the answer?

Hill was the second player from the Pac-12 Conference taken, behind Shabazz Muhammad, who was taken 14th by Utah but then was traded to Minnesota.

Jerrett ended up going 40th overall to the Portland Trail Blazers, a pick that comes with no guarantees unlike for those taken in the first round. And all that the ESPN analysts could really say about him was that he has no neck.

Adding to the one-year UA player's career uncertainty: after the draft, his rights were traded to Oklahoma City, which at least means he won't have to go as far to travel to whatever NBA Developmental League team he's likely to end up with next season.

Other notable (or questionable) picks Thursday: Cleveland used the 1st overall pick to take Anthony Bennett from UNLV, someone that NO ONE projected to go in the top six; while New Orleans briefly turned University of Kentucky into its minor league feeder program when it took Nerlens Noel a year after taking fellow one-year-and-done big man Anthony 'The Unibrow' Davis from UK. But then Noel and his sick flattop 'do was traded to Philadelphia for a guy named Jrue.

Oh, and also, apparently the best basketball players in countries like Germany and Greece are also black. Still waiting for a black Mexican or Korean to get drafted.

And for those of you who still care about the Suns (i.e., those who shop at Fry's and notice they have Suns Rewards points that can be converted into suite access!), Phoenix's once-proud-but-now-run-into-the-ground franchise chose Alex Len, a center from Ukraine by way of Maryland, with the No. 5 pick. That's about all you need to know about him.

The Suns also have a connection to NBA history by, as their owning of the 30th pick in the first round made them part of the last-ever pick announced by commissioner David Stern. Stern, who had run the league for 30 years, did his best to milk the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and even egged them on at times, is retiring.

Oh yeah, that Suns pick: guard Nemanja Nedovic from Serbia. Like it matters, since that pick ended up going to Golden State in a trade. Instead, Phoenix got Kentucky guard Archie Goodwin in a trade for the 29th pick.

The truest sign that your athletic program has reached the pinnacle of college sports has nothing to do with trophies, bowl victories, Final Fours or even flashy uniform combinations. Instead, it seems, it's all about the penal system.

Welcome to the club, University of Oregon football.

The Ducks and their 8,675,309 different ways to wear its highlighter yellow, green, black, white, silver and (eventually) full-color-spectrum unis, were issued a relatively harmless punishment by the NCAA on Wednesday for football recruiting violations from a few years back that more or less revolved around the use of a recruiting service. And for a player that never came to Eugene.

The nuts and bolts of the penalties: Oregon gets three years of 'probation,' which essentially means nothing in the eyes of high school juniors and seniors, who really only care about the street cred they'll get for having a helmet with wings on it; the reduction of one scholarship each of the next three years, which means that they'll be short a third-stringer for a few seasons; and some individual penalties assessed on coaches who aren't there anymore (how's the weather in Philly, Chip Kelly?) and who likely won't be in the college game again anytime soon.

What the penalty does not include, though, is any ban on the postseason, or the ultimate NCAA 'death penalty,' that being a ban on TV appearances.

That said, what really will come of this? Not much, it seems. It's not like USC, which couldn't participate in a bowl game two years ago, and as a result (along with an overall mismanagement of a gold mine of talent and recruiting base by coach Lane Kiffin) is suddenly a middle-of-the-pack program. That's not happened to Oregon, and as long as they continue to get a steady stream of Nike money and advanced Nike equipment and gear, expect the Ducks to shake off this 'punishment' with barely a few lost feathers.

Sadly, it appears that getting wrapped up in such a recruiting scandal, if you want to call it that, is par for the course in college sports. Arizona's closest brush with this came in basketball at the tail end of the Lute Olson era, when his signature on a letter sent out to prospective recruits who would be playing in an amateur hoops tourney at McKale violated some rule or another, but the extent of that situation was 'don't do that again.'

Nothing remotely like Oregon's situation has occurred with UA football, which might explain why the Wildcats have never been considered an elite program. Instead, Arizona football's history includes getting put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1994 as a projected No. 1 team (insert SI Jinx conspiracy theories here) and not much else, other than some farcical sideline video of Mike Stoops losing his sh*t or John Mackovic famously saying 'at least they can't say I was a cheat' as he packed up his desk following a woeful 2 1/2-year stint running the program into the ground 10 years ago.

To be truthful, were I to put on skates, the first thing I would hit would probably be the floor, which is why I've got respect for the ladies of Tucson Roller Derby.

The next TRD event in Tucson isn't 'til July 20, according to the handy schedule on TucsonRollerDerby.com, but 'til then, we've got this video to whet our appetite for ladies in skirts and helmets knocking the hell out of one another.

Either that, or we can all hang out and watch Ellen Page's starring turn in the 2009 roller derby classic, Whip It.

In case you want to make sure you've got your tickets to the action, you can purchase them in advance at TucsonRollerDerby.com for $10, with discounts available.

There's one huge question for the Arizona Wildcats coming into the 2013: who will the starting quarterback?

Right now, it looks to be a three-man race among senior B.J Denker, junior transfer Jesse Scroggins and incoming freshman Anu Solomon. Currently, things seem pretty even, and we may not have a clear-cut winner for some time...but that shouldn't stop us from taking a look at the three candidates.

From a glance, Denker has the most experience, Scroggins could be the next Matt Scott and Solomon could very well be the future of the program.

Denker is the only one of three who has started a Division I college football game. That came last year when then-starter Matt Scott was sidelined with an injury (though Denker also played garbage-time minutes in blowouts). It may be a little unfair to judge, based on his limited play, but in the time he did see on the field, Denker's stats were not very impressive.

I understand the importance of self-promotion, and that sometimes you've gotta get a little cheesy and outside of the box to draw attention. This is especially true for an entity that might not have a built-in fan base, such as a college football program that — other than an odd placement on the cover of Sports Illustrated some 19 years ago — hasn't really amounted to much.

But a Western?

The University of Arizona released a promotional video on Monday that, for lack of a better description, tries to paint football head coach Rich Rodriguez and his assistants as a rough-and-tumble bunch of desperados, willing to do anything (even toss tight ends/special teams coach Charlie Ragle out of a saloon and down some stairs) to give the UA its first-ever trip to the Rose Bowl.

Filmed this spring at Old Tucson Studios — keeping it local!!! — the 2 1/2-minute film depicts RichRod and his 11 assistants and describes the head man as "on a quest for the rose" as he and his colleagues are shown in various stages of leaning on walls, smoking cigars and hootin' and hollerin' inside what appears to be a completely dry bar.

Take a gander at Hard Edge, which apparently was executive produced by RichRod's wife, Rita:

This film is chocked full of images that will either be fondly remembered (if the upcoming season goes well) or easily used as mocking material if it's a rough fall.

The Tucson city prosecutor's office announced today it was dropping domestic violence charges against University of Arizona running back Ka'Deem Carey. With less than a month before Carey was set to go to trial, the move seems incredibly curious.

The press release provided by the city, explaining why the charges were dropped, only made things appear a bit murkier. The release said a key witness was “unavailable” and that, even if they were available, “there is no substantial likelihood that a judge would convict Mr. Carey.”

Translation: without someone actually saying Ka'Deem did what he's being charged with, how are we to expect to win?

The release said no re-filing of the charges will happen, though that didn't stop Greene from still getting in a veiled dig in against Carey, noting that “on occasion, there is simply not enough evidence to proceed to trial against the accused despite the best efforts of the police and the prosecution.”

For those not familiar with Carey's case, in December he was accused of shoving his ex-girlfriend to the ground and later slamming her hand in a door during an altercation at her house. The two supposedly had an argument over a lighter that Carey allegedly wanted to use to smoke an illegal substance, though Farhang said Carey has never failed a drug test administered by UA athletic officials.

A few weeks later Carey, a junior-to-be from Canyon del Oro High School who led the nation in rushing in 2012 and was expected to be a Heisman Trophy candidate this fall, got into further hot water when he apparently pulled the 'don't you know who I am card' on a McKale Center employee who approached him during a UA basketball game because he was sitting on the back of a seat and was in the arena without a ticket.

With the criminal charges behind him, hopefully Carey can focus on keeping his NFL draft stock still stays strong. He's currently considered the top running back available in the 2014 draft if he were to go pro after this season, and with the UA breaking in a new starting quarterback he's expected to remain a primary focus in the Wildcats' offense.

He'll also probably be kept at arms length from the mainstream media for the foreseeable future, starting with the Pac-12 Conference's Media Day next month. UA currently is scheduled to bring wide receiver Terrence Miller and linebacker Jake Fischer to the event, along with head coach Rich Rodriguez.

Count me among the Arizona football followers who are on board with most of the uniform changes to come down the pike of late, most notably the copper helmets and red jerseys.

Let me reiterate: most of the changes. But if the freakish A-logo-infused helmet face masks that are circulating the interwebs become an actual part of the Wildcats' game gear, I might have to change my overall opinion.

If you haven't seen them, take a gander below:

I know, it looks like a prank. Has to be a prank, right? I mean, unless you're Oregon (or maybe ASU with its oh-so-school-colory black unis), why go so far as to shove the logo into the grill of linebacker charging forward? Will he really be that scared of a charging block A?

At this point they're just 'samples,' according to UA athletic director Greg Byrne's Twitter feed (though Byrne may just be employing some very, very dry humor in response to a fan). They're a prototype developed by a company called Bad Ass Masks, that most does custom helmet painting but is trying to use some connections to the UA athletic department to branch out into these freakish designs.

I'm hoping they stay as "samples." It's cool to be the first to do something and all, but not this. Not now.

You might remember the saga of Sean Miller's March 15 technical foul against UCLA, which we're inartfully calling "He Touched the Ball"-Gate.

That late-game technical gave UCLA two free-throws, which ended up making the difference in UA's 66-64 loss.

We noted that the NCAA was going to look into the matter once reports surfaced that the PAC-12 head of officiating, Ed Rush has a hate-boner for Miller, offering a bounty for hitting the Wildcats' coach with a technical:

Though the offer to give $5,000 or a trip to Cancun for any referee who T'd up or ejected Miller from the Pac-12 tourney was meant as a 'joke,' that didn't stop one official from issuing a technical simply because Miller mentioned that #HeTouchedTheBall.

Rush resigned from his post, the investigation happened anyway, and now, we get this, by way of Deadspin:

First, Ice Miller [the law firm hired to review the situation] determined that Rush's "so-called 'bounty' statements were neither offered nor taken literally." Why it's necessary to point out that something that was never offered was also not taken literally is something someone else can investigate. The report does note that at least half the officials felt from the tone of Rush's pre-game statements that Sean Miller was being specifically targeted for enforcement of bench-decorum rules. Which leads to the second finding.

Rush's pre-game statements affected the officiating of bench decorum during the UCLA-Arizona game. Since the officials were hyper-aware of the emphasis on bench decorum, Sean Miller was assessed a technical foul for conduct that, but for Ed Rush's pre-game emphasis (which, again, specifically singled out Miller), likely would not have resulted in a technical foul. Got all that? It gets better.

Ice Miller then determined that even though Sean Miller received a technical foul for conduct that ordinarily would not have resulted in a technical foul but for Ed Rush's specific emphasis on both the conduct and Miller, the integrity of the UCLA-Arizona game was preserved. "The officials did not demonstrate favoritism toward either team or either head coach."

So, to summarize, the bounty wasn't literally offered, but because of Rush's specifically non-specific care to note Miller, Miller got a technical — but that the game wasn't really affected by this.

Whatever. Season's over, Rush is gone, and Miller still has a job and a rallying cry for future years. Go Cats.

If you're interested in the PAC-12 report itself, head here.

I don't know if there's a clear American sports parallel for what's happening tonight at 5:30 in Houston as our own FC Tucson take on Major League Soccer's Dynamo in the third round of the US Open Cup. If the Tucson Padres were matched up against a major league team, that wouldn't be the same, as those two teams would be adjacent in the ranks of baseball leagues. No, FC Tucson, an amateur team made up of teammates who mostly hadn't met two months ago, have already defeated a team one step ahead of them in soccer's hierarchy in Phoenix FC, beat the San Antonio Scorpions last week (one step below MLS) and are now facing the Houston Dynamo, MLS's runner-up the last two seasons.

It's a big deal, and believe it or not, there are people who believe Tucson's own have a shot tonight. Houston is likely starting a team of reserves, resting their starters for this week's league match. So, you never know.

Late notice, I realize, but the game will be on at Playground on Congress tonight, sharing the bar's giant screen with the US vs. Belgium matchup, or you can stream the game online.

Who knows? You might get the chance to witness Tucson sports history.

ESPNU's just-completed NCAA baseball selection show began with a clip of Arizona's Brandon Dixon driving in the game-winning run in last year's College World Series, and also included some words of wisdom from UA coach Andy Lopez.

It ended with the Wildcats not getting a chance to defend that title.

Arizona was not among the 64 teams chosen for the postseason, despite a 34-21 record that moved the Wildcats to 15-15 in the Pac-12 tournament. The UA finished tied for fifth in the conference, but only four schools (ASU, Oregon, Oregon State and UCLA) got invites. The latter three get to host regionals this weekend, as Arizona did last year en route to its first NCAA title since 1986.

Thus officially ends the 2012-13 athletic season for the UA, which usually doesn't happen prior to the first 100-degree day of the year. But when the spring season involves a somewhat-rebuilding baseball team and a softball program on its way down and maybe in need of a change in leadership, sometimes these things happen.

The world will not end, Wildcat fans. Just remember that it's only 95 days until the football team opens against Northern Arizona on Aug. 30 at the newly renovated Arizona Stadium, followed a week later by what sounds like it will be the road trip to end all road trips, a Sept. 7 game at UNLV in Las Vegas.