Know Your Enemy, Pac-10 Edition: Arizona State Sun Devils

What the fuck ASU? You aren’t supposed to be good this year. You were supposed to take another turn at being a Pac-10 doormat. This is not your year to go all Wazzu on the league. I can understand that next year you would be a solid team, but WAIT YOUR FUCKING TURN! Let the rest of us battle it out with each other and then we can relax and beat you to pad our own win columns. You have hot girls there, go back to boning them and leave sports to the rest of the Pac-10.

Arizona State has long been found at the top of the party school rankings and has spent the last few seasons near the bottom of the college hoops rankings. Looking to inject some “youthful” energy into the program, the school went out and hired Herb Sendek from NC State. Sendek is quite shockingly only 44 years old.

Sendek came out and led an undermanned team to an 8-22 (2-16, Pac-10) record last year, just where they belong. Unfortunately, they are a lot better this year. Jeff Pendergraph is as solid as ever. He will anchor the frontcourt and provide consistent scoring and rebounds. Freshman guard James Harden decided to come in and become the leading scorer. He has been even stronger in Pac-10 play, averaging 22.6 points in 5 games. ASU is currently 4-1 in Pac-10 play with impressive victories over Oregon, @Cal, and Arizona and ranked #24 in the AP poll. The big thing will be to see how this relatively young team handles playing on the road in hostile arenas. So far they have one road win at the benign Haas Pavilion, but all of their 3 losses have come on the road at Illinois, Nebraska, and Stanford. Their 14-3 record may be a bit inflated right now.

Hopefully, this is just a temporary hot streak and ASU will sink back down to the bottom of the Pac where they belong, at least for one more season. Sendek has more solid recruits coming in with Johnny McCoy and Taylor Rhode. Just hope that they will get sidetracked by the whoriffic sights of Tempe.
(This one has a hotdog and friends.)

*Pictures courtesy of Pac-10 Poon.