On the road again
January 16th, 2008, 2:49 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Mark Heller
Before Arizona State sets out for its first true road trip of this Pac-10 grind, here are a series of facts, figures and theories to chew on:
Road sweeps have been rare around these parts for the past few years. You’re probably thinking, ‘How about one win?’ and you’d be right, but a 3-0 start in Pac-10 play makes for a lot of dreaming.
The Bay area teams (California and Stanford) were victims of ASU’s last Pac-10 road weekend sweep in early January of 2005. They last swept the Washington schools in 2003 (long before Washington State became an elite team), the Oregon schools in 2001 and the L.A. schools (UCLA and USC) in 1987.
This figure won’t last long while conference play gets in full swing, but only two teams in the nation have three top-25 RPI wins this year (as of Wednesday): Arizona State (3-0) and Texas (3-2). ASU’s three top-25 wins are Arizona (10 in the RPI), Xavier (11) and Oregon (25). The Longhorns have beaten Tennessee (3), St. Mary’s (6) and UCLA (7)
Lastly, some ASU love from Dick Vitale. And in the bigger picture, a story by the San Francisco Chronicle about the emergence of defense in the Pac-10, a league known for scoring but “soft” when it came to getting stops (most agree it started changing when Ben Howland came to UCLA from Pittsburgh).
