(Photo: Haley Spracale/WCSN)
LAS VEGAS — As Arizona cut the nets in T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night, Arizona State men’s basketball, who lost to its rival on Friday, found itself back in Tempe, awaiting its seeding announcement on Selection Sunday.
The Sun Devils received a lot of help on Saturday — their first off day since the beginning of the Pac-12 Tournament — with every potential bid stealer losing, yielding the program a decent chance of lacing up its dancing shoes.
But even with ASU’s resume, which includes wins over Arizona, Creighton, Michigan and Oregon, they still find themselves on the bubble.
“I understand the evaluation process and you respect other teams that have had good seasons and are being considered as we are,” head coach Bobby Hurley said. “I truly believe though, that if you take our three best wins, and you compare them to other bubble teams, I don’t think it’s close.”
All of ASU’s best three wins were away from Tempe and they are 5-1 on neutral floors, bolstering the value of each win. When comparing its top three wins against other bubble teams, the Sun Devils have an average opponent NET ranking of 24.3, which is better than NC State and Pitt, two competing programs in Joe Lunardi’s bracketology.
“We’ve demonstrated that we could go away from our home court and win,” Hurley said. “And that’s a major priority in the NCAA tournament. We have seven true road wins, we’re 5-1 on a neutral court — won 22 games in a power conference — I mean, how much more do you really have to do?”
If the Sun Devils hear their name called on Selection Sunday, it will most likely be during the First Four round, which would send them to Dayton, Ohio, where they’ll fight to live another day in the Tournament.
When Arizona punched ASU’s ticket home on Friday night, Hurley and his squad still had a day between their final games and seeding selection. Although it was only a day, the anticipation can make the time feel much longer than what reality presented.
“I mean, luckily for us, we made it until Friday. So we only got about 24-36 hours to wait,” fifth-year guard Desmond Cambridge said. “It probably going to feel like a week, starting now. It’s definitely going to be tough. Probably going to try not even think about basketball for maybe the next day and let the cards fall how they may.”
Despite the external noise surrounding the program’s Tournament hopes, the players inside the locker room are confident about their chances of receiving a bid.
“I might be a little bias, but of course, I think we did enough,” Cambridge said. “Unfortunately, I don’t make the decision [about] who gets in. So hopefully the people who did think we did.”
As poised as the players are about a potential berth, Hurley is assured his players will live up to the expectations of a berth, citing the experience players have accumulated during their collegiate career. Sophomore guard Frankie Collins, who transferred to ASU from Michigan, is in a similar position this year as he was last year. Collins was on the 11-seeded Wolverines, who batted for a bid before losing in the Sweet 16 to Villanova.
“It’s going to be really challenging, but I mean if I just get a flashback from last year’s. This is kind of the same situation I was in last year when I was at Michigan,” Collins said. “We had lost in the tournament and we had to go home and just figure out if we were going to be in it or not. So we sat there and waited and hopefully the odds are on our side and we get a bid. If we do I guarantee we will shock the world.”
The biggest piece of advice Collins shared with his team is to continue to fight for the season, as the next game isn’t guaranteed.
“I kind of tell the guys all the time that being in this position, your season is on the line. So you got to — even when we’re out there playing — we got to fight and keep on fighting because we have to stack some wins. But me being in that situation last year definitely helps me and helps the guys this year.”
The Selection Sunday Show will begin at 3 p.m. MST and will be aired on CBS. According to Bracket Matrix, which averages team’s seeds across brackets, ASU is in 88% of brackets, averaging an 11.04 seed.
