• Jim Nintzel

The Arizona Wildcats suffered their third loss of the season in a defeat to the California Golden Bears, 77-69, last night. It was a tough week for Top 10 teams: Five of the top seven in the AP rankings lost a game.

Next up: The Cats go on the road to face Colorado and Utah.

Tucson's Kidical Mass heads to the westside this weekend. Find out where and when here.

Check out which business happens to be a surprising bike magnet and post your own.

Check out the photos from UA's Criterium, which was held last weekend.

If you're an Arizona basketball fan, you already know that the 'Cats ended up beating the Stanford Cardinal 73-66 last night at the McKale Center—and if you were watching the game on television, you likely noted the commentary of ESPN color analyst and basketball great Bill Walton.

Being a web producer/social media person/guy with a Facebook account, I couldn't escape the mass of Facebook and Twitter messages that rained down, pouring disdain for ESPN color analyst and basketball great Bill Walton, who apparently was either completely absurd last night:

Bill Walton to Dave Pasch: "You're like John Wooden, I'm your worst nightmare."
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 7, 2013

Or completely annoying:

@espn What does Bill Walton have against Arizona. As a fan it was hard to watch with all his Arizona bashing and negative talk.
— Bryon Thornberry (@bryonthor) February 7, 2013

In fact, UA fans were pretty unhappy in general with Walton, it seems:

Hey @billwalton you sure you're all right to be announcing this game right now? #ArizonaBasketball
— Steven Andrade (@SpittaAndrade) February 7, 2013

Well, we've decided to get down to the bottom of this by contacting Walton on Twitter:

Hey @billwalton, a lot of @uofa fans felt you weren't too kind to the Wildcats on commentary last night against Stanford. Your thoughts?
— tucsonweekly (@tucsonweekly) February 7, 2013

If the big man throws dowwwwwn a response, we'll let you know. But below the jump, we've got a few other thoughts on Walton's commentary last night—as well as an odd resemblance a 'Cats fan noticed.

FC Tucson, the upstart soccer club that is the brains behind the ongoing onslaught of pro soccer going on right now in Tucson, is the first to admit it's doing the best it can on a shoestring budget. That means getting creative to market and promote itself and what it's trying to accomplish locally.

This little clip is a pretty nifty start to that effort:

The video is part of a slick campaign using all forms of social media to get the word out about the Tucson SoccerFest games, which culminate with the MLS Desert Diamond Cup later this month. FC Tucson was one of many to try and take advantage of the Super Bowl blackout last night, tweeting incessantly about how such things wouldn't happen at a soccer match, or, oh by the way, now's a good time to go online and order some tickets ...

Well played, FC Tucson. Well played. Only thing that would have made it better would be to have gotten the endorsement of Leon Sandcastle.

A dedicated cyclist with Tucson roots was killed in a car crash. More details here.

There appears to be an increase in bicycle theft recently. YMCA has begun warning their patrons. See the photo and why I think bike thefts are still under-reported.

A mail order bike business is moving to Tucson and looking for an employee. Find out when they will start and how to apply.

Sometimes when you ride a bike you come across an unexpected joy. Find out what our unexpected joys are. What's yours?

After having one of the best seasons a Wildcat player has ever produced on the football field, Ka'Deem Carey seems to be on a roll of less-than-stellar decisions in the offseason, getting kicked out of Thursday night's basketball game against UCLA, confronting staff and campus police in the process:

He and his cousin, Hakeem Adams-Johnson, were “double seated and sitting on the backs of the chairs.” Frank Duarte, a UA Athletics event staff member, initially asked Adams-Johnson and Carey to leave, according to the report.

Duarte asked them to move on “four occasions.” After Carey ignored him, a University of Arizona Police Department officer asked Carey to move and he complied.

Carey told the officer they were sitting in that area because “they couldn’t find their seats.”

When the officer asked both of them for their tickets, Carey responded, “Get the fuck out of my face.” He then asked, “Do you know who I am? I’m an All-American.”

The officer asked Carey and Adams-Johnson to accompany him outside. They agreed, but Carey approached the officer, asking what the problem was. He said that the pair did not actually have tickets, but were having problems getting them, according to the report.

Carey then “got close” to the officer, who told Carey to “back off.” When Carey did not comply, the officer spoke in “a louder voice” and Carey took several steps back, according to the report.

All of us who have lived here for a while have, at one time or another, gloated to our friends and family in some less-weather-friendly place about how perfect the climate here is most of the time.

Emphasis on the word most of the time. Well, today is one of those days not to gloat about, thanks to this strange wet stuff falling out of the sky.

Nevertheless, just because there might be a little bit of moisture — I believe the overpaid weather people on local TV call it 'rain' — coming down, that does not mean today's Canada-Denmark international soccer friendly isn't still going to be held at Kino Stadium.

Because, believe it or not, in other parts of the world, this type of weather is considered the rule, not the exception, and the sports must go on. Just ask the fans of the Portland and Seattle MLS teams when they come down here over the next few weeks.

Knowing how weather fickle the locals are, the good folks at FC Tucson have put together a little pick-me-up post to keep people excited about the match today. Please enjoy ... and then get over the fact it's not 75 and sunny and go watch some soccer!

• Photo by Michael McKisson

It seems like bike thieves are working overtime lately. Check out our stolen bike listings to see if you've spotted any of these bikes.

The editor of Bicycling magazine visited Tucson this week for the Ride On. Tucson event. The day before, local advocates took him for a ride to see Tucson's best bike infrastructure. See where they went and what he thought about the ride.

A local mountain bicyclist heads to Phoenix for a race and comes home with a repeat title. Read about the race and check out the photos.

Tucson's identity as a pro soccer destination — hey, what do you know, that happens to be the subject of this week's cover story! — took a big step forward today when Pima County announced it was committing $2 million toward a full-fledged soccer stadium at the Kino Sports Complex.

A press conference at Kino today listed some specifics for the planned facility, which will turn one of the already converted baseball fields into a soccer stadium with 2,000 permanent seats. It will also have an overhang above the bleachers to, as main stadium tenant FC Tucson says, "shade crowds from the sun and project the sound toward the field, elevating the energy level."

(I'm just imagining the amplified sounds of vuvuzelas ...)

FC Tucson and county officials also announced plans to add a sixth field to the north side of the Kino Complex, which was built in the late 1990s for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox, back when Tucson was considered a baseball town first and foremost.

But with nearly a month's worth of professional soccer matches about to be played in Tucson, starting with Saturday's friendly between Canada and Denmark at Kino Stadium, methinks this community might now be known more as a soccer town than for the national pastime.

Although the certainty of this Manti Te’o hoax news is unclear, it is sure to bring about more annoying puns and terms that will stick around much longer than the news of the story will.

“Te’oing,” a play on words from “Tebowing,” is already circuiting the Twitter and social media world as a term for making up a fake girlfriend.

For any of you who haven’t heard about the Te’o debacle, sports blog Deadspin reported yesterday that the Notre Dame football star had a fake girlfriend, who supposedly passed away in September. Maybe he created her and killed her off for the publicity to help him win the Heisman trophy this year (which didn't help; he finished second in the Heisman running). Or possibly, he was caught up in a Catfish-like, online dating scandal.

Manti Te’o had the public eating out of the palm of his hand with his heartbreaking story of how his girlfriend Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia. On top of the death of the love of his life, his grandma also passed away on the same day (terrible, right?).

Wrong. Turns out, this “girlfriend” never existed. Still terrible and real however, Annette Santiago, his grandma, died on Sept. 11, 2012, at the age of 72, according to Social Security Administration records in Nexis.

To read the entirety of this lengthy article that examines the different angles of the story, first released by Deadspin, click here.