ASU’s NCAA Tournament Resume Analysis

Analyzing NCAA Tournament résumés is like speaking a foreign language.

Once you’ve done it enough, you never really forget how to do it. You could be eons removed from it, but the minute you try to do it again, everything starts coming back to you.

For two years, I studied “bracketology” while covering Arizona State men’s basketball; it became my main focus. Nowadays, I’m no longer covering sports, but the language that is bracketology is still grafted on my DNA.

So, before I tell you what you need to know about ASU, here’s why you should believe me: In 2018-19, I spent the season releasing weekly bracket projections. While I’m not publishing those brackets anymore, I’m still tracking everything on my own just the same. My latest projections are included below.

By the end of last season, I had predicted all but one of the 68 teams in the tournament field, I had correctly predicted 45 teams’ exact seed, and on another 18, I was within one line above or below their official seed.

For reference, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi — who, somewhat deservingly so, has become many fans’ end-all-be-all in bracketology — also had 67 teams in the field, had 46 exact seeds, and then another 18 within one line. So, if you trust his opinion, statistics say you might trust mine, too.

Now, with that being said…

Let’s talk Arizona State.

As someone who’s grown very used to — almost too used to — looking at ASU’s NCAA Tournament team sheet and chuckling a little bit at its absolutely anarchic nature, the current iteration looks like a brand-new car smells, in comparison.

There are Q1 wins aplenty! There aren’t any horrific losses (Oh yeah, I still remember Princeton)! I see respectable metrics! A really good strength of schedule!

Where was all of this stuff when I was covering the team?

With all of that in mind, I’m going to cut to the chase a little bit and tell you something you’ve probably already figured out: Arizona State is a tournament team. It would take a really bad finish to the season to change that fact.

But the story doesn’t end there, of course; we all know how mercurial this team can be, so nothing is completely out of the question. Furthermore, even if this team were a straight lock, you’d still, probably want to know what to expect down the road in terms of seeding,

So, for starters, here’s what the résumé is looking like, on paper, as of Monday, February 24.

THE BREAKDOWN

Arizona State (19-8, 10-4 Pac-12)

NET: No. 41

KenPom: No. 56

Sagarin: No. 46

BPI: No. 63

KPI: No. 22

Strength of Record: No. 32

Strength of Schedule: No. 13

Quadrant 1 (Home vs. NET Nos. 1-30, Neutral vs. 1-50, Away vs. 1-75)

WINS: vs. No.8 Arizona — vs. No. 31 Stanford — vs. No. 20 Oregon — @ No. 65 Washington — @ No. 68 Oregon State

LOSSES: @ No. 8 Arizona — vs. No. 9 Creighton — No. 18 Colorado — @ No. 20 Oregon — vs. No. 18 Colorado — No. 31 Saint Mary’s

REMAINING GAMES (1): @ No. 47 Southern California (Feb. 29)

RECORD: 5-6

--Please, for the love of God, don’t let anyone try to tell you that a “losing record” against Q1 matters. It’s the quantity of wins we’re looking for, and ASU’s is among the best in what you could call the second tier; that is, a handful of elite teams have 7-10 Q1 wins, but not many in ASU’s boat have more than three or four.

Quadrant 2 (Home vs. NET Nos. 31-75, Neutral vs. 51-100, Away vs. 76-135)

WINS: vs. No. 47 Southern California — No. 69 St. John’s — @ No. 97 San Francisco — vs. No. 68 Oregon State

LOSSES: @ No. 121 Washington State — No. 51 Virginia

REMAINING GAMES (4): vs. No. 64 Washington (Mar. 5) — @ No. 78 UCLA

RECORD: 4-2

--This is amazing; that Washington State loss is the worst thing on ASU’s résumé. It’s kind of the only bad thing. If the Cougars tailspin down the stretch, it could become Q3, but I’m not too worried about that either way if I’m an ASU fan.

--Watch out for UCLA; that game is inches from becoming a Q1 game if the Bruins finish strong.

Quadrant 3 (Home vs. NET Nos. 76-160, Neutral vs. 101-200, Away vs. 136-240)

WINS: vs. No. 76 UCLA — vs. No. 90 Georgia — vs. No. 81 Utah — @ No. 142 California — @ No. 183 Princeton LOSSES: None

REMAINING GAMES (1): vs. No. 121 Washington State (Mar. 7)

RECORD: 5-0

--Here’s a fun one; ASU is seven points from being 17-10 with two Q3 losses (California by 5, Princeton by 2). Think about that for a second. That’s a sure-fire bubble team that probably needs to win three of its next four in order to survive. And you probably forgot how close those games were by now, didn’t you? Be thanking your lucky stars that they’re wins.

Quadrant 4 (Home vs. NET Nos. 161+, Neutral vs. 201+, Away vs. 241+)

WINS: vs. No. 189 Prairie View — vs. No. 201 Rider — vs. No. 234 Louisiana — vs. No. 246 Texas Southern — vs. No. 347 Central Connecticut State

LOSSES: None

REMAINING GAMES: None

RECORD: 5-0

THE CURRENT STATUS

We’ll start with the good because there’s a lot of it.

For one, as I mentioned earlier, every “category” of this résumé is sound. The metrics are there. The win-loss records are there. The quality of victories is there. The lack of major blemishes is there.

It’s hard to believe, just looking at this résumé as it stands today, that this team was ever a bubble team. Heck, this team was worse than a bubble team, as recently as three hours or so ago (it was that recent, right?) when the Sun Devils were 12-7.

You get the idea; I’ll cut to the verdict. Right now, I’m calling Arizona State a No. 8 seed.

The Sun Devils have a résumé that, in most categories, compares pretty linearly to many of my No. 6 and No. 7 seeds, but what really drags them down from where they could be is the metrics.

Now, I know I mentioned earlier that ASU’s metrics are good, and they are, but that concept of “good” is true in a relative sense when compared to 1) what ASU fans are used to and 2) that which makes and breaks specifically a tournament bid.

But the Sun Devils are aiming for higher territory now, and when you line ASU up face to face with many of the other teams in the No. 6-8 range, the metrics stick out like a sore thumb.

For reference, when you take the 11 teams other than the Sun Devils that I have seed between No. 6 and No. 8, their average NET ranking is about 20 and their average KenPom is about 21. Go back and look at ASU’s rankings in those categories — No. 41 and No. 56 — and tell me that’s not a striking outlier.

You can find my full seed list at the bottom of this article, but for reference, the teams we’re talking about here are the likes of Marquette, Iowa, Ohio State, BYU, etc. ASU has as many or more Q1 wins and a comparable record and strength of schedule to most of the teams on that list. But the metrics are glaring in comparison.

And I only say this to explain to you why the Sun Devils are likely going to continually be seeded lower than you think they should be down the stretch. They’ve got the wins and losses to go toe to toe with a lot of these higher-seeded contenders, but those metrics are going to continue to lag behind the pack, and that won’t just change overnight.

To put it simply, ASU has the computer rankings of a double-digit seed and the raw results of a No. 6 seed. So, for now, we’ll say a No. 8 seed. Now, let’s talk about what lies ahead.

LOOKING DOWN THE ROAD

I can see a few different scenarios unfolding as we head into March.

Remaining on the schedule, ASU has a road trip to the Los Angeles schools, and a home set against the Washington schools. Safe to say, this coming weekend is the Sun Devils’ last real chance to move the needle much further, at least before they head to the Pac-12 Tournament.

I’m not going to get into what championship week means for ASU just yet since so much is subject to change. Who might the Sun Devils play? What might their seed be? What might their national standing look like by then? That’s too many variables to talk about it in any kind of quantifiable sense.

So, for now, let’s just talk in terms of what’s left of the regular season.

What ASU “can” and “can’t” do in its remaining games is really a matter of perspective, and depends on your definition of success. If you just want to see the Sun Devils get a bid and don’t care about seeding, you can go ahead and prop your feet up and read a book or something.

As long as ASU doesn’t lose out, including the Pac-12 Tournament — which is astronomically unlikely — they look to be in the field. Theoretically, a 20-win team with five Q1 wins and no bad losses is a tournament team 99 times out of 100.

But if you’re a little greedier relative to what you’ve been given in recent years, you probably want as high of a seed as possible. Don’t worry, that’s natural.

It seems like a decent bet that ASU splits this weekend and sweeps the next, putting the Sun Devils’ final record at 22-9 entering Vegas. If this coming weekend is a split, there’s a good chance the one win that comes out of it is in Q1, as USC is firmly a Q1 opponent and UCLA is right on the fringe. So, you can potentially add a sixth Q1 win to that theoretical final résumé.

If that’s how things unfold in these final four games, ASU is probably still sitting around the No. 7 or No. 8 area. Should the Sun Devils win out, though, they may be able to fly as high as the No. 6 range entering championship week, especially given what that would do for their metrics.

Again, I’m not going to go further down the road than that, because you’re just asking to be wrong if you try to predict three weeks in advance in the 2019-20 college basketball season.

If ASU goes 0-2 this weekend, you can start to feel a little panicked entering the final week of the season, but even that wouldn’t be doomsday.

So, for today, I’ll just tell you to enjoy the relief that you should be experiencing at this point in the season; you’ve been starved of that relief the last two seasons, and dozens of fan bases around the country would kill to be in your shoes.

It happened out of nowhere, and after the last couple of years, you probably have a hard time trusting me on this — and believe me, I get it — but for now, the Sun Devils are just fine.

FULL SEED LIST

No. 1: KANSAS, Baylor, GONZAGA, SAN DIEGO STATE

No. 2: MARYLAND, LOUISVILLE, Dayton, Duke

No. 3: Florida State, SETON HALL, Creighton, Villanova

No. 4: West Virginia, Penn State, Oregon, KENTUCKY

No. 5: Colorado, Auburn, Butler, Michigan

No. 6: Michigan State, Arizona, Iowa, Ohio State

No. 7: Marquette, Brigham Young, HOUSTON, Wisconsin

No. 8: Louisiana State, Illinois, Texas Tech, ARIZONA STATE

No. 9: Indiana, Saint Mary’s, Rutgers, Florida

No. 10: Xavier, Virginia, Rhode Island, Utah State

No. 11: Wichita State, Southern California, NORTHERN IOWA, Cincinnati, Richmond

No. 12: EAST TENNESSEE STATE, North Carolina State, Providence, LIBERTY, YALE

No. 13: STEPHEN F. AUSTIN, VERMONT, AKRON, NORTH TEXAS

No. 14: UC IRVINE, COLGATE, NEW MEXICO STATE, HOFSTRA

No. 15: SOUTH DAKOTA STATE, WRIGHT STATE, MONTANA, LITTLE ROCK

No. 16: RADFORD, AUSTIN PEAY, PRAIRIE VIEW A&M, SAINT PETER’S, MERRIMACK, NC A&T

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First Four Out: Oklahoma, Stanford, Georgetown, Arkansas

Next Four Out: Memphis, Mississippi State, South Carolina, UCLA

Four More: Alabama, Notre Dame, Syracuse, VCU

Also Considered: Oregon State, Tennessee, UNC Greensboro