Things change pretty quickly in college basketball. Like the flip of a coin, teams can see their stock skyrocket and plummet even with just one or two significant results.

Maybe it’s a couple of key conference road wins that boost your RPI. Maybe it’s an ugly home loss or two to your league’s bottom-feeders that throw up a red flag on your résumé.

Over the last two months. Arizona State fans experienced both sides of the coin.

Heads — the month of December. The Sun Devils went from a relative nobody to the No. 3 team in the country, sitting on the top line of most bracket projections at the season’s midway point.

Tails — the month of January. Five consecutive weekday losses. Close calls against Oregon State and Utah. A gradual fall out of the Top 25 in the eyes of the AP, RPI, and KenPom and onto the bubble.

And that’s where we left things just two weeks ago. Fresh off of a loss at Washington that pushed ASU to 4-6 in conference play, the Sun Devils looked like a legitimate bubble team with an RPI outside the Top 40.

But the coin flips again.

Make no mistake, a sweep of the Los Angeles schools meant way more for ASU than the first weekend sweep in the Bobby Hurley era.

With wins over both USC and UCLA, the Sun Devils increased their number of wins over RPI Top 100 teams from six to eight and saw their own overall RPI jump from outside the Top 40 to inside the Top 30.

So the pressing question seems to no longer be how Arizona State stacks up against the rest of the bubble — although a few bad losses down the stretch could reawaken such a conversation — but rather how the Sun Devils stack up in terms of seeding.

Let’s take a look:

Quadrant 1 (Home Games vs. RPI Nos. 1-30, Neutral vs. 1-50, Away vs. 1-75) Record: 3-3 Wins: No. 2 Xavier (Neutral), @ No. 9 Kansas, @ No. 59 Utah Losses: @ No. 18 Arizona, @ No. 42 Washington, @ No. 61 Colorado

Quadrant 2 (Home vs. 31-75, Neutral vs. 51-100, Away vs. 76-135) Record: 5-2 Wins: vs. No. 48 USC, vs. No. 52 UCLA vs. No. 61 Colorado, No. 63 Kansas State (Neutral), No. 64 St. John’s (Neutral) Losses: vs. No. 59 Utah, @ No. 97 Stanford

Quadrant 3 (Home vs. 76-160, Neutral vs. 101-200, Away vs. 136-240) Record: 7-1 Wins: vs. No. 130 San Diego State, vs. No. 120 Vanderbilt, vs. No. 140 UC Irvine, vs. No. 149 Pacific, vs. No. 159 Oregon State, @ No. 188 California, @ No. 178 Washington State Losses: vs. No. 77 Oregon

Quadrant 4 Home vs. 161+, Neutral vs. 201+, Away vs. 240+) Record: 4-0 Wins: vs. No. 287 Idaho State, vs. No. 297 Northern Arizona, vs. No. 166 San Francisco, vs. No. 336 Longwood

Other Notable Metrics RPI Non-Conference Strength of Schedule: 171th RPI Overall Strength of Schedule: 77th KenPom Rating: 33th Road Record: 4-4

It’s a lot easier to defend an NCAA Tournament résumé when the sole argument in question is whether or not a team is deserving of a bid. While it may not have two weeks ago, ASU’s résumé, at this point, passes that test with room to spare.

But now we’ve got to split some hairs because there are dozens of teams with similarly competitive résumés that are all jockeying for position among the No. 5 through No. 8 seeds — which is about where we can accurately place ASU at this point.

BracketMatrix.com, a resource that compiles all notable bracket projections into one concise listing, currently displays Arizona State as a No. 7 seed, appearing in all 106 of the polled brackets with an average seed of 6.78. This seems about right to me.

Some examples of ASU’s competition for seeding, keeping in mind that the committee — with its recent Top 16 reveal — placed a specific weight on quadrant 1 wins and road wins:

Rhode Island Rams (21-3, 13-0 Atlantic 10), Bracket Matrix No. 5 seed RPI: 5th // Advantage URI KenPom: 30th // Slight Advantage URI Non-Conference SOS: 3rd // Major Advantage URI

Overall SOS: 40th // Advantage URI Quadrant 1 Record: 1-3 // Advantage ASU Road Record: 6-2 // Advantage URI

Wichita State Shockers (19-5, 9-3 American), Bracket Matrix No. 6 seed RPI: 19th // Slight Advantage WSU KenPom: 18th // Advantage WSU Non-Conference SOS: 46th // Slight Advantage WSU

Overall SOS: 51st // Advantage WSU Quadrant 1 Record: 1-2 // Advantage ASU Road Record: 6-2 // Advantage WSU

TCU Horned Frogs (17-9, 5-8 Big 12), Bracket Matrix No. 8 seed RPI: 26th // Miniscule Advantage ASU KenPom: 25th // Slight Advantage TCU Non-Conference SOS: 57th // Advantage TCU

Overall SOS: 12th // Advantage TCU Quadrant 1 Record: 2-8 // Major Advantage ASU Road Record: 2-6 // Major Advantage ASU

The biggest thing you can take away from the above résumés is that ASU’s biggest advantage is its record against quadrant one. Broader metrics — particularly the strength of schedule, believe it or not — don’t exactly favor the Sun Devils, but pound-for-pound, game-for-game, a decent argument could be made for ASU against any of these teams.

If you want, you can compare the Sun Devils to any other team with this handy RPI tool.

The way I see it, it’s pretty unlikely Arizona State will enter the Pac-12 tournament projecting as anything higher than a No. 5 seed.

Here’s why: a win over Arizona would add one more win to the Sun Devils’ quadrant one total, but after that, there’s really no legitimate chance for ASU to add anything significant to its résumé in the regular season.

In fact, there’s a more likely chance the Sun Devils could hurt their résumé, as a late-season loss to any of the four opponents that follow Arizona on the schedule — @ No. 77 Oregon, @ No. 159 Oregon State, No. 188 California, No. 97 Stanford — would be relatively ugly entering March.

But let’s assume that ASU doesn’t slip up against either of the Oregon schools or the Bay Area schools. A No. 5 seed, in that case, seems quite achievable even with a loss to Arizona on Thursday.

Of course, with a successful showing in Las Vegas, there’s certainly also room for ASU to climb to anything as high as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed, but it’s a tad too early to be looking into Championship Weekend scenarios — especially because the Sun Devils are part of a pack of eight Pac-12 teams separated by one game.

For now, though, a lot hinges on the upcoming game against Arizona. A loss wouldn’t particularly kill ASU’s résumé — although it could kill some of the recent momentum the Sun Devils have built up — but a win would be one last major addition entering the postseason.

So, yeah, pretty big game Thursday night.