Devils Split in Bay Area

It's never a good situation when your big man gets his fourth foul with 17:25 to play in the game. It's even worse when you're going up against a front line that has twin seven footers. Devils's center Jeff Pendergraph had to sit when he was called for a VERY questionable offensive foul early in the second half and from that point forward it was all Stanford.

The lack of an aggressive big man in the middle made it very difficult for James Harden to penetrate the lane and do what he's been doing over the last 10 games -- scoring at will. Stanford was able to collapse on Harden every time and rendered him ineffective offensively in the second half. On the other end of the court, ASU had no answer for Brooke Lopez who scored easily on Eric Boateng every time he was fed the ball in the post. I'm starting to see why Duke wasn't too broken up over Boateng transferring after his freshman season.

While the loss to Stanford was disappointing, a split in the Bay area speaks to the progress the Devils are making in hoops. Their biggest challenge right now is depth and as the season wears on, that will probably be their glaring weakness. Which begs the question, what happened to Christian Polk? The guy was the closest thing we had to a consistent outside threat last season and now he doesn't even see the court. He must have ticked Sendek off pretty bad.

Kevin O'Neill Can't Burst My Bubble

"He (James Harden) did a great job,'' Arizona interim head coach Kevin O'Neill said. "He initiates contact. The guy is going to be a high draft pick, if I were to guess. I thought our guys did a decent job on him a couple of times.''

Plant all the thoughts in Harden's head that you want O'Neill, but it still doesn't change the fact that we finally beat U of Tucson for the first time in 12 tries. This was a big monkey to get off the team's back and will hopefully go a long way in building some momentum for a program that has long underachieved.

I still see the Devils as a .500 team in conference when all is said and done this season, but who knows, maybe Harden is one of those special players this program has been waiting on for a long time that can carry the team to some unexpected heights.

Devil hoops hitting their stride

I was able to watch the Devils play Oregon State today on FSN. Great game if you're a Sun Devils' fan. It has been a while since a Sun Devil hoops team was this much fun to watch. You probably have to go back to the early Frieder days with Jamal Faulkner, Stevin Smith, Lynn Collins and Mario Bennett for a Devils team that was competitive and fun to watch.


The Devils definitely play some solid interior defense thanks to the zone but if a team gets hot from the outside, it can be exploited. However, going into the season, everyone knew the Devils would play solid D. It was the offense that was a question. James Harden living up to the hype has helped address any concerns about the offense. He makes everyone around him better.

Wednesday night's game against Tucson should be interesting. I'm sure they will be a little ticked off coming into the game after losing to Oregon, a team ASU beat last Thursday. Either way, the rivalry should at least be a bit more competitive than it has been in the past. Also, the proof is there that the program is progressing - the win over Xavier and quick conference start represent a huge improvement over last season.

Unrelated note - nice going Erickson in nabbing Gerrell Robinson away from the Irish. Looks like we're on our way to having a Top 25 recruiting class.

Kirk Herbstreit hates ASU and the Pac-10

Well, maybe "hate" is a bit extreme, but if anyone watched ESPN's Holiday Bowl broadcast, it's hard not to walk away thinking that Herbstreit, one of ESPN's top college football analysts, has some bias against the Pac-10 and ASU.

I've had a week now to get over the thrashing the Longhorns put on the Devils. Unfortunately, this loss has some long-term ramifications for me personally. Living in the Austin area and working with several Longhorn alums, it will be a while before I can talk trash against the Longhorns. I will continue to proudly wear the maroon and gold but do so knowing that every time I do, some random Longhorn fan will be quick to remind me of their pinnacle moment from what was ultimately an underachieving 2007 Texas football season for them.

Before ranting further on the broadcast of the game, here are some of my other random observations:

• How does an offensive line with the experience that ASU's had (three grad students starting) have such awful pass protection. I have always heard from people who know much more about football than I do that talent is a critical piece, chemistry on the offensive line is equally important. This line has played together for a few years now so it would seem chemistry should not be an issue. That means there was either a lack of talent/depth on the O-line or....
• Horrible O-line schemes and coaching. The Washington State game in early October was really the first game I can remember where our pass protection weaknesses were exploited and continued to get worse throughout the remainder of the season. Why didn't the coaching staff ever adjust? Would it kill them to use an H-back or plug one of our linebackers in at fullback to block?
• I really hope Erickson makes the QB competition wide-open come spring practice. Rudy should assume nothing, hopefully he will mature a bit more during the off-season. Danny Sullivan showed some poise in his few series but keep in mind the game was pretty much over by that point, but he did at least make it somewhat interesting, cutting the score to 10 with a few minutes left.
• If Kyle Williams can play well more consistently than he did this season, the Devils should have one of the top two receiving corps in the Pac-10. Seemed like the WRs were bailing Rudy out time and time again. A stark contrast from last season. This group of receivers definitely matured a lot over last season.
  

Now about the broadcast. I was really fired up going into this season that ESPN was going to start broadcasting Pac-10 games and we wouldn't have to continually endure the high school quality broadcasts on FSN. Unfortunately after having to listen to Herbstreit and his ongoing bias toward the Big 10, consistently picking against ASU and then his apparent lies about Rudy Carpenter's trash talking during the Holiday Bowl broadcast, I was actually missing Petros Papadakis.

Note to ESPN, just because Bob Davie's kid is a walk-on at ASU, it doesn't mean you have to make the guy your second string sideline reporter since he happens to be at the game.