#10 Seed in the West

[DWKB]

As stated before, I am neither. I could care less about ASU, and I could REALLY care less about the Suns. I am completely neutral in terms of bias on this issue and just calling it as I see it.

My basketball teams are Missouri and the Pacers.

Missouri? Boy you must be bitter then, huh? Queen Snyder, Ricky Clemons, Plaige Arena. Stefan Hannah, no FFs, 5th place or worse in the Big 12 year after year.

 

[BigRedRage]

Get over it! I don't know who is whinier, Suns fans or ASU fans, oh wait they are the same people.

you should actually read what he said.

 

[NightHawk11and81]

Missouri? Boy you must be bitter then, huh? Queen Snyder, Ricky Clemons, Plaige Arena. Stefan Hannah, no FFs, 5th place or worse in the Big 12 year after year.

Not bitter at all, we have football and baseball, in which we are quite good at winning. For basketball, it's actually kind of relaxing to watch the annual implosion, and with my hopeful career as a sportswriter soon approaching, I won't be able to root for anyone, so it's not a bad thing to be detached from this team.

Instead, I can just be a fan of good basketball.

If Arizona is not in the Tournament then ASU's resume includes exactly zero quality wins away from Tempe. Arizona's resume is the ONLY reason ASU was even considered for the NCAA Tournament and even then it wasn't enough to put in those cupcake-feeders.

How about Xavier and the rest of the Pac-10? Not every win you get has to come on the road. Arizona had some good wins in the Pac-10, but some of those are offset by losses that left the Wildcats at 7th in the conference. If the committee had left out both Arizona schools, I would have been fine with that. It would have been hard to justify only four bids to the Pac-10 (Oregon shouldn't have been invited either), but it would have been acceptable.

If the committee had chosen to put both in and omit Oregon, that would have been a great decision, a very commendable one. Oregon had less right than either Arizona school to make it, yet somehow they got a 9 seed. But if only one Arizona school had to get in, it should have been the Sun Devils.

But in the long-run, this won't matter. Arizona may have received a gift from the committee this season, but Arizona State wins in the long run. The Sun Devils have an outstanding coach in Herb Sendek, a proven winner who will almost certainly make Arizona State relevant in hoops for many years. The Wildcats have a mess on their hands between Lute Olson and Kevin O'Neill. Will O'Neill accept waiting for Olson to retire? Will Olson honor that commitment? What does Olson have left at age 74? If O'Neill does become the next coach, will Arizona fall apart when he does?

Word of warning to the Wildcats fans: If the two schools continue down their current paths, Arizona State will have overtaken Arizona as the better basketball program by the end of the decade.

 

[Renz]

Word of warning to the Wildcats fans: If the two schools continue down their current paths, Arizona State will have overtaken Arizona as the better basketball program by the end of the decade.

Try having more than one winning season in a row before you proclaim ASU better than the team who has been winning for a quarter century.

ASU should have a good team next season, but then what? When Harden and Pendergraph are gone ASU will have nothing again.

 

[BigRedRage]

Try having more than one winning season in a row before you proclaim ASU better than the team who has been winning for a quarter century.

ASU should have a good team next season, but then what? When Harden and Pendergraph are gone ASU will have nothing again.

Insert NCAA team here and make same comment.

 

[NightHawk11and81]

Try having more than one winning season in a row before you proclaim ASU better than the team who has been winning for a quarter century.

ASU should have a good team next season, but then what? When Harden and Pendergraph are gone ASU will have nothing again.

Then Herb Sendek earns his money by recruiting. Unless you're an NC State fan, it's pretty obvious that the man can both coach and recruit. ASU is in a good situation.

And for the THIRD time in this thread, I am NOT an ASU fan. I do not care about Arizona State, the Sun Devils mean nothing to me. I am commenting as a neutral observer and as a journalist, which basically means the same thing. Apparently that's not getting through.

 

[LoyaltyisaCurse]

I think UA's perfomance in the 1st round backed up my statement. They got in on legacy points... Keep in mind I am neither an ASU nor a UA fan...

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Then Herb Sendek earns his money by recruiting. Unless you're an NC State fan, it's pretty obvious that the man can both coach and recruit. ASU is in a good situation.

Isn't ASU's 2008 class ranked 9th in the Pac-10? Herb has never been considered that great of a recruiter even at NC State mostly because recruits system guys. Feel free to check his 0-10 on ACC titles and lack of NBA players to back that one up. None of his first three classes at ASU have been anything to write home about either, James Harden (who Herb had to hire his HS coach to land) is probably the only impact Pac-10 player among the group.

As far as the UA got in on legacy nonsense goes, I'm still waiting for somebody to explain how Syracuse and Florida got left out if pedigree was such a concern for the selection committee.

 

[NightHawk11and81]

Isn't ASU's 2008 class ranked 9th in the Pac-10? Herb has never been considered that great of a recruiter even at NC State mostly because recruits system guys. Feel free to check his 0-10 on ACC titles and lack of NBA players to back that one up. None of his first three classes at ASU have been anything to write home about either, James Harden (who Herb had to hire his HS coach to land) is probably the only impact Pac-10 player among the group.

As far as the UA got in on legacy nonsense goes, I'm still waiting for somebody to explain how Syracuse and Florida got left out if pedigree was such a concern for the selection committee.

Yeah, because he's going to win ACC titles competing against Duke and UNC every year. You sound just like a State fan who was too dumb to realize what they had. Herb gets guys that fit his system, pulls in an occasional star such as Julius Hodge, and wins. Besides, recruiting class rankings are useless anyway half the time, there is no guarantee what someone will do when they arrive on campus.

As for the second point, I never said Arizona got in on name alone. I simply said they didn't deserve to be in. I wasn't too focused on exactly why the Wildcats got in, although from what I can gather, it happened because of Arizona's ability to lose to Memphis, Kansas and Virginia, which is truly not that easy to do. A lot of teams can lose to Memphis and Kansas. But not many can lose to Virginia on their home floor, it's not easy to screw up that badly.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Yeah, because he's going to win ACC titles competing against Duke and UNC every year. You sound just like a State fan who was too dumb to realize what they had. Herb gets guys that fit his system, pulls in an occasional star such as Julius Hodge, and wins. Besides, recruiting class rankings are useless anyway half the time, there is no guarantee what someone will do when they arrive on campus.

UNC wasn't very good half the time Herb was at State. You don't recall the Guthridge and Doherty eras?

And I think it would be wise to wait and see who Arizona names at the successor to Lute this summer and who they bring back before basking in the glory of their inevitable failure. After the KO experiment went haywire, the boosters and many in the AD have pretty much come to the conclusion that we can't just bring in anybody and hope that the Arizona name will continue our success.

 

[Mr. Boldin]

For what its worth the Pac-10 has been turning into what the ACC was when Herb was at State...

UCLA is euqal to the Duke and some UNC teams, while you have mostly a strong league year in and year out in the Pac-10 due to the recruiting and high level coaches.

 

[NightHawk11and81]

UNC wasn't very good half the time Herb was at State. You don't recall the Guthridge and Doherty eras?

Yeah, the Bill Guthridge era was SUCH a failure. He only went to two Final Fours in three years and finished second in the ACC to Duke the other year. Terrible job.

Doherty won the ACC in his rookie year, then things went wrong for his final two years. That coincided with the rise of Maryland, who won the national title in 2002. The last team to beat them that year was NC State. Wake Forest was also a power during that time. So Sendek had to deal with three, sometimes four national powers, and somehow made State a contender from a laughingstock.

And I think it would be wise to wait and see who Arizona names at the successor to Lute this summer and who they bring back before basking in the glory of their inevitable failure. After the KO experiment went haywire, the boosters and many in the AD have pretty much come to the conclusion that we can't just bring in anybody and hope that the Arizona name will continue our success.

One, not basking in the glory of the failure of anyone. I do not care about either school. I do not care how well either one does. Two, read my post again. I said this happens only if the schools continue on their current paths. Arizona could easily right the ship by finding a worthy successor to Olson. Arizona State could easily blow it by not supporting Sendek, as was the case at State.

But if the schools continue on their current paths, Arizona State is on its way to a promising basketball future and Arizona is on its way to destruction. Neither will be immediate, but if the current path continues for each school, Arizona State will have passed Arizona as the better basketball program by 2010.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Yeah, the Bill Guthridge era was SUCH a failure. He only went to two Final Fours in three years and finished second in the ACC to Duke the other year. Terrible job.

Come on, Guth's last team was an 8 seed that got lucky/hot at the right time. It wasn't a very good squad.

Doherty won the ACC in his rookie year, then things went wrong for his final two years. That coincided with the rise of Maryland, who won the national title in 2002. The last team to beat them that year was NC State. Wake Forest was also a power during that time. So Sendek had to deal with three, sometimes four national powers, and somehow made State a contender from a laughingstock.

How exactly was NC State a contender under Sendek? He was a 7-10 seed almost every year since he talked Julius Hodge into coming down there. They were out on the first wekend most of the time too. Unless of course you want to make the same false assumption about the Arizona program over the last five years whose resume in recent years looks a lot like Herb at State. Saying NC State was a laughingstock is a bit much too consdiering they won a National Title in the mid-80's. And don't give me the NCAA sanction nonsense, State has among the finest traditions and facilities in all of college basketball which should be more than enough to overcome a couple pesky NCAA infractions.

Don't get me wrong, I think Herb can coach and he evaluates taolent that fits his system well, but you're just really exaggerrating his ceiling as a coach. He's more like Dick Tomey than he is Lute Olson which is why I'm not worried about him or the ASU Hoops program. Getting to the middle of the pack (no pun intended) is rather easy with the deck Arizona is playing with.

 

[Bufalay]

Come on, Guth's last team was an 8 seed that got lucky/hot at the right time. It wasn't a very good squad.

Does this mean that we can conclude that U of A's championship doesn't really count?

 

[NightHawk11and81]

How exactly was NC State a contender under Sendek? He was a 7-10 seed almost every year since he talked Julius Hodge into coming down there. They were out on the first wekend most of the time too. Unless of course you want to make the same false assumption about the Arizona program over the last five years whose resume in recent years looks a lot like Herb at State. Saying NC State was a laughingstock is a bit much too consdiering they won a National Title in the mid-80's. And don't give me the NCAA sanction nonsense, State has among the finest traditions and facilities in all of college basketball which should be more than enough to overcome a couple pesky NCAA infractions.

You don't know how devastating the sanctions were, and you should knowthat tradition means nothing to kids if it happened years ago. After the NCAA hammer, State had the toughest academic standards of any school in the ACC for its basketball players in an attempt to avoid the fate of Maryland in 1989, and as a result, the Wolfpack could hardly recruit anyone. With no players coming in, the program went into a free fall. In the years after Florida State joined the ACC, the play-in game was created in the ACC tournament. State was in the play-in game every year but its first, finishing seventh, ninth, ninth, eighth and ninth in its first five years in a nine-team ACC. Having Les Robinson as coach did not help, setting the program back further. By contrast, Maryland, which had Gary Williams come in after sanctions in 1989, hired the right man from the start, and as a result, dug itself out quicker than State, although it would take 12 years for Maryland to fully escape, although it had made itself relevant in six years. By contrast, it took Sendek five.

At the point of the sanctions crippling State, the Wolfpack did not have a fine facility, Reynolds Coliseum was over 40 years old. The traditions recruits were seeing saw State having fallen behind not only Duke, Carolina and Maryland, but also Wake, Georgia Tech, Virginia and even Clemson.

The State teams under Sendek only appeared to be non-contenders to those outside the ACC. His teams received low seeds because of the dominance of Duke, Carolina, Maryland and Wake. That in turn makes it very difficult to get to the second weekend because you always keep drawing a difficult second-round game. Yet he managed to get there once and should have been in twice if not for a bad call in a game with Connecticut. Sendek did what was thought extremely unlikely in the ACC and made the Wolfpack matter again.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Does this mean that we can conclude that U of A's championship doesn't really count?

Four seed vs eight seed.

Three future NBA players and a Final Four MOP versus a team featuring Julius Peppers of the Carolina Panthers as a major role player.

Yep, same thing.