For the Arizona State basketball team, it has been a long 48 hours.
Coach Bobby Hurley and his team were eliminated from the Pac-12 Tournament with a loss to rival Arizona in thee seminal game. An upset in that one would have put the Sun Devils (22-12) into March Madness without a doubt but they’ve been hovering right at the cut line instead.
But ASU will indeed be part of the field. ASU will face Nevada (22-10) in a First Four game in Dayton, Ohio on Wednesday. The winner then advances to face TCU on Friday in Denver.
The matchup against Nevada sets ups quite a story line as ASU starters Warren Washington and Desmond Cambridge Jr. are both transfers from Nevada.
It will be the first trip to the postseason since 2019 when it played in the “First Four,” where it defeated St. John’s 74-65. That victory marked the first for ASU in a post-season since 2009. That game was played on a Wednesday and it was quick turnaround with the Sun Devils playing in Tulsa on a Friday and losing to Buffalo 91-74.
ASU also played in the First Four in 2018, losing to Syracuse 60-56.
So Hurley knows how tough it is to be playing earlier in the week than the rest of the field. It will be especially difficult given that ASU played three games in as many days in Las Vegas, the highlight being a quarterfinal upset win over USC that was likely the difference in ASU getting in or being left home.
“It’s a quick turnaround,” Hurley said after Friday’s game when asked about the likelihood of being sent to Dayton. “The game would be early next week. So it’s going to be dive right into film and start watching tape of our opponent, getting our guys dialed in for travel. There’s just a lot of logistical stuff that needs to happen like instantly. And then from there it’s, you know, it’s easy to motivate when you’re in that tournament, it’s so special there’s nothing like it. So these guys are going to be hungry to play. So no matter where we go we’re going to be eager to get out there on the floor.”
This will be the third appearance in the postseason in Hurley’s eight years. When the Sun Devils achieved those back-to-back appearances they removed themselves from a note-so-good distinction as ASU had the fifth-longest streak of a back-to-back drought among Power 6 schools with the last previous time it had qualified in back-to-back seasons being 1980-1981.
The Sun Devils were also projected to be in the field in 2020 with that tournament eventually canceled due to the COVID pandemic.
Hurley lobbied for his team’s selection after the loss to Arizona on Friday night, singling out his teams five Quad 1 wins, the top three of which he said he’d put up against any other bubble team.
ASU also played 19 road games, more than half its schedule. That’s also more road games than its Pac-12 foes who also qualified in UCLA (17), Arizona (17) and USC (15), as well as Oregon (15), which was a bubble team
ASU has 12 wins away from home which is tied for third nationally, with the loss to the Wildcats the first in six games on a neutral court. It has five Quad 1 wins, the most notable one also being the most memorable. That was the 89-88 win over the rival team on Feb. 25 at Arizona’s McKale Center in which the difference was a 60-foot desperation heave at the buzzer by Desmond Cambridge.
ASU was one of four Pac-12 teams making the cut. Regular season champion UCLA (29-5) and tournament Arizona (28-6) have been nationally ranked in the top 10 all season and head the quartet. USC (22-10) was slightly ahead of ASU in most projections the last month of the season.