Monday always brings plenty of news and this week brought plenty of news involving college basketball with the start of the season coming next week. Many teams are still finalizing their schedules, including Arizona, but the season is moving ahead.

Here is a breakdown of the top stories from Monday involving Arizona basketball on both the men's and women's sides.

For the first time this season a guard has earned Arizona's gold practice jersey that is awarded to the top performer each week using a points system created by the program with James Akinjo being named the Week 4 winner Monday.. So far only front court players have earned the honor of wearing the gold jersey with redshirt sophomore power forward Jordan Brown winning it twice after the Wildcats opened official practice followed by sophomore center Christian Koloko winning the jersey for the third week of practice.

Akinjo is poised to step into the ever-important starting point guard role for the Wildcats this season, head coach Sean Miller officially confirmed last week. The former Georgetown guard has not yet suited up for the Wildcats, but he does come to the program with plenty of experience and success after winning the Big East Freshman of the Year award at his previous stop.

He was named a preseason all-conference honorable mention selection last week and is expected to be one of the top contributors for the Wildcats this year after joining the team last winter upon transferring from Georgetown in December.

Akinjo has been able to work with the team since January and he has settled in nicely with his new team as just one of many new faces around the program.

"We're fortunate James Akinjo will be our point guard," Miller said Thursday. "... He's been a part of college basketball now for two years. He also was able to practice with us after Christmas and beyond, so he's more familiar with our system than somebody who's coming in for the first time.

"He will be our point guard, but one of the things I like is that we have some flexibility and depth being able to play, in essence, two point guards in the game at one time. I think there's some real value to that."

The men's basketball season is still over a week away from beginning, but the NCAA is already thinking about the spring and the challenges of hosting the NCAA Tournament at 13 different sites around the country. Monday, the NCAA announced March Madness will not run as it would under non-pandemic conditions. Instead of having the 68 teams play at 13 sites around the country teams that qualify for the tournament will all descend on one city.

Right now that city is likely to be Indianapolis with the NCAA already having preliminary conversations about holding the NCAA Tournament there with that city already in place as the Final Four host site in the spring.

The NCAA stopped short of calling the NCAA Tournament a bubble, but it believes having the event in venues across one city will help prevent any potential COVID-19 impact by limiting travel and having a "controlled environment" for games and practices.

“We have learned so much from monitoring other successful sporting events in the last several months, and it became clear it’s not feasible to manage this complex championship in so many different states with the challenges presented by the pandemic,” said Dan Gavitt, NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball. “However, we are developing a solid plan to present a safe, responsible and fantastic March Madness tournament unlike any other we’ve experienced.”

This year the sites out west included Boise, Idaho and San Jose, California with Denver, Colorado slated to be the site of West Regional March 25-27.

As of now the decision only impacts the NCAA Tournament on the men's side.

Arizona's women's team has been racking up accolades and honors since last week and now the Wildcats finally have some semblance of a schedule for the upcoming season. UA has not yet announced a finalized non-conference schedule, but Monday the Pac-12 announced the parings for the upcoming 22-game league schedule that will begin in early December. It was previously decided that the Pac-12 would expand its conference slate in "an effort to maintain the most control over scheduling and environment during the COVID-19 pandemic."

What it means is No. 7 Arizona will have fewer games to prepare for league play which will feature three other preseason AP top-10 teams. College programs are only allowed to play a maximum of 27 games this season because of the late start.

For the Wildcats conference play will not not begin with an easy opponent. No. 9 UCLA is first up on the schedule for the Wildcats some time during the week of Dec. 4 at McKale Center. The 22-game setup will allow the Wildcats to play each team twice with the return trip to Los Angeles set for the last week of January.

UA's first opportunity to face preseason No. 2 team Stanford will come in the first week of 2021 while the first matchups with preseason No. 10 Oregon and No. 18 Oregon State will come two weeks later.

Arizona's full list of Pac-12 pairings (home matchups in bold)

12/4-7: UCLA & USC

12/10-14 : Arizona State

12/18-21: at Colorado & Utah

1/1-4: Cal & Stanford

1/8-11: at Washington & Washington State

1/14-18: Oregon & Oregon State

1/22-25: Colorado & Utah

1/29-2/1: at UCLA & USC

2/5-8: at Oregon & Oregon State

2/12-15: Washington & Washington State

2/19-22: at Cal & Stanford

2/26-3/1: at Arizona State

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