Arizona State basketball took a huge step towards building their resume for March Madness this weekend. Even though neither UCLA or USC were ranked, sweeping the LA schools at home was impressive.
The destruction of the Bruins on Saturday was as convincing a win as the Devils have had this season. For the first time I saw a little life in these two games out of some players other than Carson, Felix and Bachynski. Evan Gordon has steadily gotten better for Coach Sendek.
In Saturdays 78-60 win over UCLA, Gordon scored 12 points and did some good things that won’t show up in a box score.
The concern, the bench only produced 2 points for the game.
So now, with the calendar about to turn to February, ASU can point to home victories over Colorado and UCLA in building their case for the field of 65.
Their RPI is now 58th, with their schedule ranked 97th most difficult in the nation (which doesn’t help their case).
The good news is Colorado has a RPI of 18 and the 7th most difficult schedule, UCLAs’ strength of schedule is 21 and their RPI is 46. So those two teams will help the Devils case as long as ASU keeps winning.
Bottom line, they have to move on and not lose games to teams with lousy RPIs’ like at Washington State next Thursday. The Cougars RPI is 168.
Brad Cesmat
