WILDCATS ADVANCE
Arizona’s Allonzo Trier drives against Colorado’s D’Shawn Schwartz in Thursday’s Pac-12 basketball tournament quarterfinal game in Las Vegas. Arizona won 83-67.
Shame threatens to stigmatize Arizona State’s basketball team, a group that might be authoring one of the greatest collapses in Valley sports history. Maybe they were a desert mirage all along. Or they could receive a midnight reprieve, gifted with a final chance at March Madness redemption
At this point, anything seems possible. Other than winning another meaningful game in 2017-18.
The fallout of Wednesday’s loss to Colorado is profound. Casual fans once drawn to the new winner in town have seen Cinderella excitement turn into disgust. A 20-win season that represents a major turning point for the program might go down as an epic failure, another cruel tease in our athletic scrapbook.
Like the FBI’s presence in college basketball, nobody saw this coming.
Try to remember this: While ASU’s recruiting efforts would be temporarily muted by a rejection notice from the NCAA’s Selection Committee, especially if Arizona ends up winning a national championship in San Antonio, the future hasn’t changed. Remember to pack your sunglasses. No matter what happens in the ensuing weeks, ASU’s growth potential looks better than any other basketball program in Arizona, including the polarizing powerhouse in Tucson.
ASU’s “volcanic” head coach has received criticism for his on-court temperament and the late-season losses, but his outrageous passion should be a source of comfort.
It means Bobby Hurley will not stop. His volatile mix of aggression and ambition guarantees more marquee nonconference opponents on the schedule, including a home game against Kansas and a trip to Vanderbilt in 2018-19. It means picking up the phone and brazenly courting the best high school players in America, which he’s already doing. And if Hurley somehow snags Brandon Williams, the recruit who de-committed from Arizona in the wake of a damning ESPN report, the tide of perception will quickly turn back in his favor.
After posting 11 losses in 19 games against Pac-12 opponents, it’s hard to spot the silver linings. ASU’s 12-0 start included a Sunday afternoon win in Kansas, when the Sun Devils actually overshadowed our NFL franchise. After rallying in Tucson during their first conference game of the season, they were two minutes away from a possible No. 1 ranking. That’s when it all fell apart.
There are countless theories, and all of them make sense. Colorado head coach Tad Boyle came up with the kryptonite early in the Pac-12 schedule, throwing a 2-3 zone at ASU, offering a blueprint to the rest of the league, exposing a team that relied too heavily on perimeter shooting. The Sun Devils gained depth but lost chemistry after adding two frontcourt players in December, Kimani Lawrence and Mickey Mitchell.
The Sun Devils couldn’t make free throws when it mattered. When jumpshots wouldn’t fall, they couldn’t find an alternate path to victory. And with record crowds finally showing up at Wells Fargo Arena, the team seemed heavily burdened, diminished by hype and the pressure to impress.
None of those scenarios speak well of Hurley’s job performance as ringleader. The ASU president accurately reminded his basketball coach that games are lost by poor shot selection and balls that don’t go in the basket, not the appalling incompetence of conference referees, a condition exacerbated when games begin to matter. And teams blessed with senior guards aren’t supposed to struggle with chemistry and leadership issues, playing down against inferior opponents.
Maybe there’s a simpler solution. What if ASU parlayed their underdog spirit into an early-season hot streak, surprising the nation until surprise was no longer possible?
That theory is hard to swallow. Especially when Pacific coach Damon Stoudamire said in December that the Sun Devils looked even better in person, and that a “television really doesn’t (do) them justice.” Or how the Longwood coach said that ASU would be “scary in the NCAA Tournament.”
No one wants to admit they were duped. But what if these Sun Devils were never that good?
Answer: Hurley can and will fix that problem.
Best of all, nothing has been lost just yet. The Selection Committee vowed to reward programs that take risks in nonconference scheduling. The group has proven it can look past a team that sputters to the finish line, convinced that the final 10 games don’t accurately reflect a team’s tournament viability.
ASU might have a chance to make this right, returning to the court with a chip on its shoulder, just like in November.
The alternative seems awful. The NIT would feel like a punishment, not a reward. The Sun Devils had a celebratory dinner planned in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, and it felt more like a last supper. But few empires are built without bricks and baby steps.
There is also a sign outside a car wash in Tucson that reads, “Our vacuums suck like ESPN reporting.” It’s yet another reminder that dark clouds still loom in that city, and even if the program has been damaged by reckless journalism, the setback is real. And while Arizona once again has a better basketball team in March 2018, with no fear of bubbles or Tournament exclusion, ASU might have something better:
A brighter future.