Editor’s note: The two letters below are taken from the Arizona Daily Wildcat’s Web site.

Phase Lute out

When will there be an open discussion on who will replace Lute Olson? I love him to death, but I think it is time to step aside. Otherwise UA basketball will become Penn State football, and who wants that? Bring in someone like Steve Kerr, Steve Lavin or similar ilk to work in some position at UA for a year. Let Lute retire a year later. At that point Kerr, Lavin or someone else will take over. That way there won’t be an interruption in how good the team is like there was at North Carolina when Dean Smith retired.

– Adam

Replace Lute? Not a chance

Steve Lavin? You’ve got to be kidding. We did not play well, but Coach Olson will be back next year. There is so much parity, it’s hard to win every year. As far as Penn State football, I hate to say it, but they could beat the Cats in their worst year. I live in Memphis, where the University of Memphis’ last loss was to the Wildcats, some 24 wins ago. They play in a nothing conference and played two cupcakes in the first two rounds to make it to the Sweet 16. I am looking forward to going to the game in Memphis next year and watching Lute’s Cats win another one. Crack the whip Lute, and don’t get down, but “”Bear Down.””

– Fred

Wildcats could learn from defending champion Gators’ mindset

NEW ORLEANS – The Arizona men’s basketball team never earned the opportunity to find out up-close and personal why Florida won the national championship last year and entered this year’s NCAA Tournament as the overall No. 1 seed.

But if they had stayed to watch, a look at the Gators’ mindset could help the Wildcats get to where Florida is.

Despite winning it all last season, Florida returned its top seven players, including then-sophomore stars Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer, whose draft statuses were skyrocketing.

That’s in sharp contrast to the mass exodus of the 2001 national runner-up Arizona team, which lost Richard Jefferson, Michael Wright and Gilbert Arenas early and saw Jason Gardner declare as well before eventually deciding to come back, and the 2005 national champion North Carolina Tar Heels, who lost four key underclassman to the draft.

The Florida trio, however, ignored the calling of the NBA for one reason only.

“”They came back to win a national championship,”” said Purdue head coach Matt Painter after the Boilermakers lost 74-67 to Florida in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday. “”They are playing for their university; they are playing for their team.

“”They are not trying to improve their draft status, they are not trying to do all those individual things. They are out there busting their butt and trying to win games.””

Although Painter was not directly referencing the Arizona team he eliminated two days earlier, he may as well have been.

After UA sophomore Marcus Williams made it pretty clear that this year will likely be it for him in an Arizona uniform at the end of last year and after the loss to Purdue, Olson questioned Williams’ mindset concerning him thinking too much about the NBA this year.

That’s one reason why a talented Arizona squad never put it together this season, while the Gators could be rolling to their second straight national championship in the coming weeks.

NEW ORLEANS – You would have thought Arizona was still alive in the NCAA Tournament Sunday when sounds of ‘Nice shot, Buddy’ echoed throughout New

Orleans Arena after a missed foul shot.

But no, apparently this missed free-throw ritual crossed the state’s northern border and also belongs to Nevada, who lost to Memphis in the same venue in the game after what would have been the Wildcats’ second-round

contest.

– Michael Schwartz