Blogging with the Devils

September doesn’t usually conjure up thoughts of college basketball at Arizona State, not with Dennis Erickson’s team off to a solid start, but I thought I’d paste from a recent Andy Katz story on ESPN Insider. I can’t post a link because you need to sign up for the Insider, but it’s free.

Katz begins by talking about how the Pac-10 could have eight teams in the NCAA tournament (sorry, Oregon State).

Here’s an excerpt:

The team that the majority of Pac-10 coaches are abuzz about as a sleeper in this league is Arizona State. USC coach Tim Floyd and I were sitting next to each other for a three-hour drive in Mexico from Mazatlan to Culiacan a week ago, and the one Pac-10 team he couldn’t say enough positive things about was ASU.

Here’s the deal with ASU: The Sun Devils were one of the toughest teams in the Pac-10 to score on last season but they couldn’t score themselves.

“We became a pain in the ass to play,” said second-year coach Herb Sendek. “We played hard, we became a very good defensive team. Our struggles were on the other end of the floor. We didn’t make enough shots to give ourselves any room for error. We had to pitch shutouts.”

Check the results: ASU lost by only four home against Cal, five to Oregon, five to Washington, one to Washington State, four at Oregon and four at Oregon State, and only three to Arizona. So, the 2-16 Pac-10 record (8-22 overall) didn’t truly show how close this team was to being much more respectable in the standings.

More from Katz:

The Sun Devils return solid role players in senior Antwi Atuahene (6.9 ppg), sophomore Jerren Shipp (7.6 ppg) and classmates and fellow guards Christian Polk (12 ppg) and Derek Glasser (6.3 ppg). But the reason for renewed optimism lies with a heralded newcomer class that includes guards James Harden, Jamelle McMillan, Ty Abbott and Duke transfer center Eric Boateng.

Sendek calls Harden a “really, skilled” scorer and McMillan, son of Blazers coach Nate McMillan, “the ultimate team person and a winner.” Sendek added that Abbott is a legit scorer and Boateng is a committed player who “transformed his body and added strength cut down on body fat.”

“We’ll have upwards of 24 games against high RPI games on our schedule,” Sendek said.”We could have eight teams from our league somewhere in the [preseason] top 25 with ourselves and Oregon State not considered in that mix,” Sendek said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Men's Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.