Arizona Not In the NCAA Tournament?

So can you guess what college basketball team that has the longest NCAA tournament streak. No its not North Carolina, or Duke, or UCLA, no it's Arizona. And their streak of 24 straight tournament appearances could come to an end after this year.

Arizona's season actually ended last season. Last year, legendary coach Lute Olson took the season off to deal with some personal issues. Kevin O'Neil took over the program and led them to the NCAA tournament. O'Neil was promised the job after Olson decided to call it quits for good. Olson came back and promptly told O'Neil to take a hike. Then before this season started Olson unexpectedly retried and Arizona had to name Russ Pennell the interim coach. Since then Arizona lost all their future recruits and they look like they won't make the tournament this season.

Anthony Gimino of the Tuscon Citizen, breaks down how Arizona will miss the post season.

Gimino writes: "Arizona made the NCAAs last season with an 8-10 Pac-10 record, saved by a strength of schedule that was nearly the toughest in the country. UA's middling schedule strength won't come to the rescue this season. UA, at minimum, has to be 10-8 in the conference."

He adds: "Do the math: From here, the Wildcats have to dispatch Houston on Saturday in their final non conference game and then go 8-3 in the conference the rest of the way."

Gimino goes on to say that Arizona's toughest road schedule is out of the way, but they would need a miracle to get in the tournament.

Arizona has a lot of rebuilding to do. They need a coach to replace Olson and start bringing in the type of talent Olson would bring in. I don't expect Arizona in the tournament for a while but they can recover.

"But 19 games into the season, UA can't keep merely talking about reaching for the sky, about getting better. If it hasn't happened yet, it's probably too late."