Blogging with the Devils

Antwi Atuahene, among the most worldly, colorful and entertaining players to wear Maroon and Gold this decade.

When Antwi Atuahene arrived at Arizona State, he wore 00. He was on the bottom, out of Rutgers and two years spent at Trinity Community College to improve his academics.

Three years, two coaches, 49 losses, ample playing time, slashed playing time and a chance at the NCAA Tournament later, he’s upgraded to No. 1.

“He’s not followed the yellow brick road to this destination,” coach Herb Sendek said. “He’s taken detours, round-about trips and earned his degree.” 

Finally able to make the journey from Toronto, his mother, Agartha, will be in attendance for the first time.

His career at Wells Fargo Arena ends Saturday afternoon, unless ASU hosts National Invitation Tournament games (which is very possible), but there’s still a few more games to go for the team’s motor-mouth story-teller to have fun.

He’s got plenty of tales. Teammates admire his personality, life experience and networking skills.

Perhaps equally important to this team, he’s gone from 26 minutes per game his first two years at ASU, to seven minutes per game this season, as the Sun Devils’ upgraded roster have taken his playing time.

He’s never opened his mouth.

“Some guys, if they’re not on the floor, they add nothing to the team,” he said with a slight accent accent. “I add value in other ways.”

“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Still do.”

It also means he has more to prove. He plans to play with the Canadian Olympic team and play in China with the Summer Olympics, followed by a stint or two in Europe.

Again, he feels the need to prove himself, so the 00 might return. 

“I got a lot of ball playing to do,” he said.

A few more bits of randomness:

Point guard Derek Glasser continues to battle knee tendinitis. He bumped his left knee Thursday night, but played anyway. Rest (which he won’t get) is the best prescription.

Jeff Pendergraph suffered a cut on his finger and had to change shorts and jerseys because of blood. He’ll be fine. 

ASU and Saturday’s opponent, USC, are the only two schools in Division I to play against nine teams currently ranked in the RPI top 25.

James Harden (35.9 minutes per game) and Ty Abbott (34.7) are both on pace to break the school record for minutes played by freshman in Pac-10 play. Byron Scott’s 34.2 minutes aren’t likely to last by the end of next week.

He’s big, strong, quick, agile and a future first-round NBA pick. Could Thursday night be the only time Kevin Love stops by ASU? 

On the basketball side, optimism was in the air Tuesday as Arizona State talked about this huge weekend against a couple NCAA Tournament teams in UCLA (and USC, but nobody’s talking Trojans yet).

A few highlights: 

ASU fans may shudder at the memory, but the 33-point blowout loss suffered in Los Angeles three weeks ago wasn’t completely worthless (though almost).

“They put their foot down and showed us what being a really good, experienced team is about,” James Harden said.

A month later and feeling better about his team, coach Herb Sendek took a lighter approach in retrospect.

“I think at one point we were down 100-2,” he said. “It was an avalanche that hit us. We contributed to it. Despite UCLA’s greatness, we made sure we took out our chisel and hit a few rocks ourselves to increase the flow of the avalanche. We more than helped them along, I think, not that they needed it.”

A handful of players polled claimed they were unaware of this Sendek audio/video tribute. Sendek, however, has seen it.

Obviously no one has stopped UCLA super frosh Kevin Love given his impact and season stats (17 points, 11 rebounds 58 percent shooting), but Jeff Pendergraph seemed half-annoyed, half-amused by the question:

“Why do people ask questions like that? What do people try to do to stop Kevin Garnett? People that are scorers are scorers. NBA people are NBA people. You can hope to try and limit his touches but he’s still going to get his. That’s why he’s that good and averages what he does. Everybody else tries to stop him too but have a hard time doing it. It’s going to be limit him and not let him get 40 points and 20 rebounds. Tone it down a bit so he doesn’t have a career night.”

Again, the Sun Devils were asked peeking ahead toward NCAA Tournament implications, RPI, strength of schedule, possible scenarios necessary to reach March Madness. They again, conceited there’s a little talking and peeking.

It probably goes against Sendek’s ideal wishes, who noted this stuff has been out and about since Thanksgiving. It’s not like they’ve broken down every scenario or spent time calculating future RPI standings, but they’re teenage kids within reach of getting somewhere big they’ve never been too.  Of course they know what’s going on and what lies ahead.

You think college football’s rankings can get confusing at times? They do not hold a candle to baseball, in which four polls are generally recognized: Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, USA Today/ESPN (coaches) and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.

This week, Arizona State — after outscoring Miami (Ohio), Vanderbilt and Oregon State by a combined 36-6 in the DeMarini Invitational — tops three of the four polls, with the No. 6 ranking by Baseball America the exception. That makes it easy to explain the consensus opinion on the Sun Devils, but some teams can be all over the map when comparing the four polls.

So what does that mean for ASU baseball pieces you read in the Tribune and on this blog? Including each of the four rankings can clutter copy, so the USA Today/ESPN poll will be the primary source. If you see a ranking without attribution, assume that it was determined by the coaches.

Brett Wallace gets back to first on a pickoff attempt against Vanderbilt on Saturday. The junior had two home runs and seven RBIs in the game. (Lisa Olson/Tribune)

Third baseman Brett Wallace on Tuesday was named the Pac-10’s player of the week after going 5-for-12 with three home runs and nine RBIs. Against Vanderbilt and Oregon State, Wallace batted leadoff, a role he filled 14 times last season, batting .509 (29-for-57) with seven home runs.

There is a good chance he will remain in the top spot when ASU faces 18th-ranked — and if you figured that is from the USA Today/ESPN poll, give yourself a cookie for reading comprehension — Michigan on Thursday at Packard Stadium.

Citing RPI concerns, the Wolverines nixed the idea of playing Northern Illinois on Wednesday instead of a second contest with ASU. As a result, the Sun Devils’ schedule remains the same: Michigan at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, then the Coca-Cola Classic: Hawaii at 4 p.m. Friday and Michigan at 4 p.m. Saturday (both at Surprise Stadium), and Portland at 1 p.m. Sunday at Packard.

NIU — which canceled a series at Texas Tech last weekend as part of a 10-day athletics moratorium after five students were slain on the DeKalb, Ill., campus on Feb. 14 — still will make up two games in Arizona. The Huskies will play a doubleheader in Surprise on Thursday, facing Portland at 1 p.m. and Hawaii at 4 p.m.

What do we make of this weekend’s much-needed split by Arizona State against the Washington schools?

Basically, a little bit of good, and a whole lot of TBD.

(And yes, all this is nothing new to the Sun Devils, who’ve made it clear in the past week they’re not above checking out standings and possible tournament implications).

First, losing at then-No. 17 Washington State wasn’t going to be a huge deal (unless it was by 30 points),  but snapping an 11-game losing streak to Washington was, not just because it’s a Pac-10 road game against a team which just beat UCLA (somehow).

Had the Sun Devils lost both games, the’d have fallen to 6-8 in the conference, down with the Cal’s and Oregon’s of the league which would have not only been brutal climbing out of that hole with four regular season games left, but they would have needed help from two or three other teams in addition.

In short, they would have further muddled scenarios which are already cloudy and impossible to gauge to begin with.

The Sun Devils slipped against Cal a couple weeks ago, but might have evened up by beating Washington on Saturday (Thomas Boggan/Tribune)

By keeping themselves at .500, the Sun Devils last another week staying on point where most figure a 9-9 team gets into the Tournament, which the Sun Devils can do with a split of the final two weekends (or a sweep, which would most likely have to happen at the Oregon schools March 6-8).

Although it’s likely to be a requirement to get in (barring a serious Pac-10 Tournament run), a .500 finish doesn’t guarantee anything (other than they’ll be playing in one of the two national postseason tournaments). Even with the Pac-10 conference on its side, the Sun Devils are still relatively high in the RPI, and though the Tournament committee looks at much more, the Sun Devils aren’t competing for spots against the conference, they’re vying against all the rest of the at-large teams in the country for those other 34 non-guaranteed spots.

Furthermore, what’s going to happen if a 9-9 regular season team loses to a lower seed in the Pac-10 Tournament?  Would it be advantageous to, say, be the 7th seed and play No. 10 Oregon State in the first round and run the risk of losing to the lowly Beavers in the first round?  

Or is a team better off winning against a lower seed in the first round and having to play a Stanford or Washington State in the second round?

Or is a team better off getting a bye on the first day and facing Stanford or Wazzou (and losing) on the second day?

ASU is doing what’s necessary by accumulating a few “signature” wins (Xavier, Arizona twice, Stanford) and at least splitting series down the stretch, with another likely against the Oregon schools in two weeks.

That’s what makes a split at home against the difficult L.A.-area schools this weekend so important. There’s reason for hope. Since its Sweet Sixteen season in 1994-95, ASU had gone 2-28 against ranked teams at home under Bill Frieder, Don Newman and Rob Evans. Herb Sendek is 3-4 with No. 4 UCLA coming up Thursday.

On the other hand, road teams were 32-31 in conference games before last weekend, when the home team went 7-2.

It’s no wonder March remains one big TBD.

Check out this hysterical rendition of Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” Herb Sendek style.  There’s a PG-13 rated word which gets beeped out, but if you want to be safe at the workplace, wear headphones or listen at home.

No idea who created it (though I could take a few easy guesses it was an Arizona State fan or North Carolina State bitter the Wolfpack ran him out of town), but it’s worth the four minutes.

UPDATE: All ASU will say is that Jarvis has been “cleared to play,” a school official said. Jarvis pinch hit for designated hitter Petey Paramore in the sixth inning, drawing a walk, and grounded into a double play in the seventh.

Jason Jarvis

Arizona State closer Jason Jarvis is in uniform and in the dugout at the start of the Sun Devils’ game against Vanderbilt on Saturday, as he has been granted at least temporary eligibility to play.

The sophomore, who had 11 saves in half a season in 2007, has been unavailable to ASU pending resolution of an academic matter. He was not with the team during Friday night’s season-opener against Miami (Ohio).

Also, Pedro Alvarez, Vanderbilt’s All-American third baseman, was scratched from the starting lineup due to a wrist injury.

ASU is in the process of making a schedule change to help Northern Illinois, which cancelled a series at Texas Tech this weekend to attend a memorial service for the five students slain on the DeKalb, Ill., campus on Feb. 14.

Huskies coach Ed Mathey contacted ASU coach Pat Murphy, who invited NIU to Tempe to make up two games.

Instead of playing Michigan on Thursday at Packard Stadium, the Sun Devils would face NIU at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday. NIU would play Michigan at 6 p.m. on Thursday at Packard. (Tickets to the cancelled ASU-Michigan game would be usable for the NIU contest, and admission for NIU-Michigan would be $5).

The changes are awaiting approval from Michigan.

The ASU games for the Coca-Cola Invitational next weekend — at Surprise Stadium against Hawaii on Friday and Michigan on Saturday and at Packard against Portland on Sunday — remain unchanged.

There was no resolution on Thursday to Jason Jarvis’ dispute of a fall-semester grade, so barring a last-minute decision, the Arizona State sophomore closer will be ineligible when the Sun Devils open the season against Miami (Ohio) on Friday night.

His absence is a “crushing blow to our team,” said coach Pat Murphy, who has indicated that Jarvis would be lost for the season if the matter is not resolved in his favor.

Last season, Jarvis was not cleared to play by the NCAA until the start of Pac-10 play in March, due to an issue concerning boarding-school credits he earned. After months of inactivity, he was a dual threat for ASU, setting a school freshman record with 11 saves and delivering clutch pinch hits in the postseason.

“He sat on his butt waiting because he couldn’t practice with us,” Murphy said. “Then, 11 saves and a couple of key hits later, he’s huge for us. Now, he’s ineligible. I’m really sensitive to that.”

Ike Davis is moving from right field to first base, but the junior said that the biggest change in his game will come in the batter’s box. Davis can swing pain-free, thanks to offseason wrist surgery.

Wearing a large black brace on the left wrist for a portion of last season, Davis batted .349 with eight home runs and 61 RBIs. With the injury to his pitching arm, Davis was limited to 6.2 innings in seven mound appearances.

“It feels a lot better than last year,” said Davis, who is a candidate to close with Jarvis sidelined. “It’s great to be able to go up there without any pain.”

Starting pitcher Josh Satow was a 28th-round draft pick of the Seattle Mariners after a 2007 season in which he went 13-3 with a 2.76 ERA. The left-hander said that staying at ASU for a senior season was a quick, easy choice.

Satow can use the year to build endurance. He admitted to being fatigued at last year’s College World Series, which took speed off of his inside fastball, limiting the effectiveness of his primary pitch, the changeup. When the fastball is not working, hitters can wait for the soft stuff over the plate.

During the team’s media day on Tuesday, however, Satow said that gaining maturity has been the biggest benefit of returning to school.

“I came back to learn a little more about the mental side of the game,” Satow said. “I wanted to become a leader of the staff and help kids out the way the juniors and seniors did for me when I first got here. I wanted to get my degree, too. Since the fall, I’ve grown a lot more than I did last year at this time.”

Sitting nearby, Davis quipped, “Ah, we just gave him $15,000 to come back.”

Replied Murphy, “Yeah, that would be great for (the reporters) to print.” Third baseman Brett Wallace added, smiling, “Just let everyone know Ike said that.”

Ryan Torain

Former ASU running back Ryan Torain, who missed the second half of last season due to a foot injury, told the Kansas City Star that he figures to be limited at the NFL scouting combine that runs through Tuesday in Indianapolis.

Torain — who before his injury was rated as the No. 2 senior running back in the nation by ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. — will likely limit himself to the bench press, vertical jump and interviews with NFL executives and scouts. He hopes to perform running and agility drills at ASU’s pro day next month.

Safety Josh Barrett, linebacker Robert James, center Mike Pollak and cornerback Justin Tryon are the other ASU players at the combine.

ASU coach Herb Sendek took little away from his team scoring 23 points in the final two minutes to at least make Saturday’s loss to California interesting in the end.

The previous 38 minutes were much more disconcerning.

But the Sun Devils have developed this little characteristic of giving up big runs, then returning the favor.

Runs are always life in college basketball, it’s why coaches rarely have any timeouts remaining at game’s end.

“In some instances we’ve had more than nine lives and overcome ourselves at times,” Sendek said.

This was the end scene at the end of a double-digit comeback in the final five minutes of regulation (and then overtime) against Stanford. The Sun Devils inadvertently became well-versed in burying themselves alive and then escaping. (Lisa Olson/Tribune)

There are many cases to his point. The Sun Devils trailed big against Stanford and Arizona, and came back to win.

As for Thursday’s opponent, they trailed Washington State by double digits before a furious comeback last month, but lost at the buzzer.

Ahead early, an 18-2 WSU run in the second half ultimately ended the Sun Devils’ day.

“We can’t have spurts of energy, because when that spurt ends, that’s when teams start smelling blood and get leads,” forward Jeff Pendergraph said. “Instead of us keep going and building on a lead, we dig deeper and deeper into a hole and then there’s five minutes left and down by 12 and it’s trying to pull another one out at the wire instead of having a good game.

“If we had our energy going and doing what we’re supposed to we’d have beat (WSU) by 20 instead of being down one.”

It makes for good entertainment and drama, even if the remaining hairs fall out of Sendek’s head a little quicker. It’s also a tribute that this team loaded with underclassmen doesn’t pack it in (other than UCLA and Nebraska).

Perhaps this group thrives on such high-wire acrobatics?

“I would hope they’re not that ill,” Sendek joked. “Who wants to give up an 18-2 run just to see if we can come back?”

Evidently, these guys.

Arizona State and Texas are the only two schools in Division I men’s basketball to have beaten multiple teams currently ranked in the top 10 of this week’s Associated Press Top 25.

ASU has beaten No. 9 Stanford and No. 10 Xavier (The Muskateers’ terrific season since losing to ASU in December has been huge in keeping the Sun Devils’ NCAA Tournament chances afloat). 

Texas has beaten No. 2 Tennessee, No. 4 Kansas and No. 6 UCLA.

James Harden, on whether his college basketball has lived up to expectations: “In the beginning of the season it was like, ‘This is the Pac-10?’ We were winning all the time. Then we got going (into the season) and it’s like, ‘Yeah, this is tough.’”

Back in swing. There wasn’t much left to say from Saturday’s misery against California which wasn’t already written.

The Pac-10 standings are no less muddled this week than any other week this season, but it didn’t prevent Arizona State coach Herb Sendek from opining about the Tournament selections.

More on that below. Here are a few points of interest to come from Tuesday:

Ty Abbott busted out (to put it mildly) of a shooting slump with 30 points on Saturday. His last big game was at California in mid-January.

Before the Stanford game two weeks ago, he was in the gym at 11 p.m. at night for nearly two hours shooting 3-pointers. He said the problems have been more mental than physical.

“It kind of felt like I was shooting a baseball,” he said.

He told teammates Antwi Atuahene and Steve Jones he felt good again, but started 0-fer against the Cardinal until he hit a big 3-pointer in the final minute of ASU’s comeback. 

Much like last year’s high school state tournament, ASU’s Ty Abbott (Phoenix Desert Vista) won the battle Saturday, but California’s Harper Kamp (Mesa Mountain View) won the war. (Thomas Boggan/Tribune)

Sendek often fields questions comparing the Pac-10 to his North Carolina State days in the ACC, and will often shy away from comparison questions in general.

Even though a Sendek-coached team once made the Tournament with a sub-.500 record (NC State went 7-9 in ACC games in 2004-2005), similar secrecy was expected when he was asked about the Pac-10 in the NCAA Tournament, and whether a 9-9 conference record would be good enough to get into the Tournament for the first time in league history (as many pundits are predicting).

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all, given the strength of this league,” Sendek said. “I’d be surprised if a 9-9 team didn’t make it.

“I can’t even fathom how the NCAA Tournament committee, at this point, can even begin to discern and sort it out, the way college basketball has evolved.  I can’t even imagine, once you get beyond the obvious teams and automatic bids, how you discern, of the next 50 teams, who the best teams are. I think it’s an impossibility it’s so hard.”

Renardo Sidney paid ASU and the team’s locker room an unofficial visit after Saturday’s loss. Sidney, the 6-foot-10 forward from L.A. is a top-3 national recruit. He met with Sendek, assistant Scott Pera and James Harden (whom he played with for a season early in high school) for at least an hour after the game.

Nobody affiliated with the school could comment per NCAA rules, but the Sun Devils are in the mix with UCLA and USC as leading contenders for Sidney, who’s drawn comparisons to Kevin Garnett and Chris Webber. 

Programming Changes: The ASU-USC game at Wells Fargo Arena on March 1 will be at 4 p.m. and televised on FSN Arizona. The ASU-Oregon State regular season finale March 8 in Corvallis will be at 3:30 p.m. and also shown on FSN Arizona.

No injuries to report, so that’s all for now. More to come Wednesday.

The blog staff always gets a little fired up at the start of an Arizona State baseball season — this little corner of the Web started out as a baseball blog, after all — so here are a few diamond notes as we anxiously await the Sun Devils’ first pitch.

ASU, ranked No. 1 in the USA Today (coaches) poll, No. 9 by Baseball America and No. 3 by Collegiate Baseball, opens the year on Friday against Miami (Ohio) in the DeMarini Invitational at Packard Stadium. It plays Vanderbilt on Saturday and two-time defending national champion Oregon State on Sunday.

As of Monday afternoon, coach Pat Murphy indicated, there is no change in the status of sophomore closer Jason Jarvis, whose eligibility is in question due to a dispute over a fall-semester grade. He is unavailable to the Sun Devils until the matter is resolved, and for much longer if it is not resolved in Jarvis’ favor.

Murphy said that left-hander Ike Davis and righties Dustin Brader and Tommy Rafferty are among the stopper options if Jarvis, who set an ASU freshman record with 11 saves last season, remains sidelined.

The Sun Devils will be all-new up the middle, where shortstop Andrew Romine and second baseman Eric Sogard were as consistent as they come the last two seasons. Three players — junior-college transfer Marcel Champagnie, sophomore Raoul Torrez and transfer Jake Elmore — are battling for two spots.

Champagnie is in the running to start at shortstop, while Torrez and Elmore can play either midfield position.

“We’ll have a lot of inexperience up the middle,” Murphy said. “If (infielders coach) Andy Stankiewicz can pull it off and make them grow up quickly, then maybe he should get hired by USA Baseball to help them win the World Baseball Classic. He’s been doing a great job with them so far.”

Brett Wallace’s move from first base to third and Davis’ switch to first leaves a hole in right field, where a pair of true freshmen — Matt Newman, a Phoenix Brophy Prep product, and Andy Workman of Chandler Hamilton — are vying for playing time.

Right field can be a challenging position at Packard Stadium, where evening start times later in the season come with a vision-impairing setting sun. However, Murphy has no hesitancy to use two guys straight out of high school.

“Newman is advanced beyond his years,” Murphy said. “He’s the kind of freshman you really want. He won’t show up in the box score all of the time, but he can impact every game he plays in. Workman has a ton of ability, and he’s been a pleasant surprise.”

Among the other notable non-conference matchups are a March 22 doubleheader against Florida International, now coached by former ASU assistant Turtle Thomas; a March 23 game against UC Irvine, which eliminated the Sun Devils from last year’s College World Series, and a two-game series at frequent super-regional foe Cal State Fullerton on April 22-23.

The Sun Devils host archrival Arizona, Collegiate Baseball’s preseason No. 1, in a non-Pac-10 game on March 18. The Challenge at Chase is apparently dead, and — the money raised for charity notwithstanding — that is a good thing for ASU, considering that the Wildcats took both games played between the teams at Chase Field.