So how did a team that finished in the bottom half of the Pac-12 regular season standings and didn’t get out of the first round of the Pac-12 conference tourney make it into the NCAA field of 68? It’s a very fair question to ask, Unless you’re on the schools payroll, there’s plenty of reason to question how Arizona State made it into March Madness.
But the simple answer from my view is, “get over it.”
Look, did Arizona State beat USC head to head? Yes. Did USC have some bad non-conference losses? Yes(Princeton and SMU). On the other side of the coin, Arizona State had impressive wins over Xavier and Kansas, so the NCAA committee felt that the entire body of work by Arizona State was more impressive than the Trojans. Simply getting into the title game of the Pac-12 Tourney didn’t carry much weight for USC, they had to win it.
Is there something to the theory that having a name coach like Bobby Hurley makes for a better story to tell on TV in March Madness? Who wouldn’t want to watch Hurley coach against Syracuse and Jim Boeheim? That’s a made for TV national matchup this Wednesday night in Dayton. Ratings points will be scored in New York City.
For years Arizona State played horrible non-conference schedules, but under Hurley they’ve ditched the directional schools and gone places to play the best of the best. They have been rewarded for that. Get over it…
