One year ago in mid-March, Arizona State was still reeling off a dramatic ending to their disappointing season, losing at the buzzer in the Pac-12 Tournament to Stanford and ending an abysmal 14-17 season. Today, they heard their names called on Selection Sunday. For the 17th time in program history, Bobby Hurley and the Sun Devils are off to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in his Tempe tenure, earning the No. 11 seed in the West Region play-in game against the Nevada Wolfpack.
“It’s a fantastic feeling,” Hurley exclaimed on Sunday afternoon. “Just really excited for the kids. They wanted it badly.”
Having gone 22-12 on the season and a respectable 11-9 in the Pac-12, the Sun Devils entered the Pac-12 Tournament knowing they needed to continue to build their NCAA Tournament résume. Despite holding wins over the field of 68 teams in Arizona, USC, Creighton, and VCU, among others, ASU’s inclusion wasn’t a given. While their 63-57 win in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament against Oregon State kept them alive, it was their quarterfinal performance against USC that proved pivotal in ultimately securing their bid.
“We knew we had to win those two,” Hurley described. “It was must-win games for our season, and the guys stepped up. The USC game was definitely a significant game. I personally, I didn’t share this with the players, but I felt a ton of pressure that whole day to deliver a good performance, and we needed to win that game in order to have a legitimate chance to play in the NCAA Tournament.”
Leading the game from tipoff to final buzzer, the Sun Devils’ 77-72 win over the Trojans may have very well been the clincher for them in reaching March Madness, a place not many saw this program going in the recent past.
It’s been quite the program turnaround for Hurley, whose last two campaigns in Tempe have been underwhelming. Combining for a 25-31 record, the program was being written off nationally to the point where Hurley had trouble constructing both a coaching staff and roster.
“When I had the board up in my living room, and I was looking at what coaches I had and which players were going to stay, and it was the first year of the portal, it was almost like we were starting from scratch,” Hurley said. “I’m thrilled for everyone involved, certainly for the guys and all the work we put in. We were at ground zero two years ago. It’s been a two-year journey, and it’s just exciting that we have the opportunities in front of us.”
With the transfer portal cannibalizing the team, not much was expected of the program coming into the 2022-2023 season, even though they brought back an array of their own guys. Returners DJ Horne, Alonzo Gaffney, and Jamiya Neal were joined by a handful of new faces, including Michigan’s Frankie Collins, Auburn’s Devan Cambridge, and a pair of transfers from Nevada in Warren Washington and Desmond Cambridge. Austin Nunez and Duke Brennan also joined the team as incoming freshmen.
While bringing in a nearly entirely new roster, all the Sun Devils did with it was start their season 15-3, including wins over fellow tournament squads in Creighton and VCU. While January and February were tougher stretches, the Sun Devils played with desperation and got it done when it mattered, especially in wins over Arizona on the road and USC on a neutral floor, giving them just enough credit to earn a bid this afternoon.
“We’ve had our backs against the wall probably since the Bay Area,” Hurley explained. “We have been almost playing for our season since then, so it’s good to be able to take a deep breath, and it’s onto the next step, preparing for Nevada.”
The Nevada Wolfpack will be ASU’s opponent in the first four, with the game scheduled for Wednesday night at 6:10 P.M. MST. airing on truTV. This season, the Wolfpack compiled a 22-10 record and finished fourth in the Mountain West Conference with a mark of 12-6. They finished the season on a three-game losing streak and are overall 6-7 in road and neutral site games.
Their head coach, Steve Alford, is familiar with Bobby Hurley from his time at UCLA, where Alford won four of the five meetings between the two from 2015-2018.
“I have a ton of respect for Steve [Alford],” Hurley noted. “He and I got along very well when he was coaching in our league. For him to have lost that much production and be in the NCAA tournament states volumes about how good of a coach he is.”
Having fallen victim to the transfer portal himself, Alford lost two of his key players from his team a year ago when they went 13-18. Those two would be none other than Arizona State’s Warren Washington and Desmond Cambridge. Having played for Alford, Hurley hopes that both Washington and Cambridge will be able to dust off their recollection from their Nevada days from last season in preparation for the matchup on Wednesday.
“it’s ironic that it played out the way it did,” Hurley noted. “I haven’t had an opportunity to get their feelings on it; it was chaos in my house. I’ll get their thoughts as we go. Des and Warren are going to be involved in that scouting report.”
Aside from their overall record, Nevada is one of the more balanced teams in the country, as they currently sit in the top quadrant of the NCAA in both adjusted offensive (61st) and defensive (42nd) efficiency, according to KenPom. Among their 22 wins, four came against fellow NCAA Tournament teams in Grand Canyon, San Diego State, Utah State, and Boise State. Should the Sun Devils defeat the Wolfpack on Wednesday night, they will advance into the West Region bracket and, on Friday, play their round of 64 game in Denver against TCU.
With the stress of Selection Sunday now in the rearview, Bobby Hurley and the Sun Devils are looking forward to getting their dancing shoes on since Hurley didn't get his bathing suit on before jumping in his pool in celebration.
“I did it the first time (ASU qualified for the tournament in his tenure), so I figured I’d give it another shot,” Hurley said of his joyful leap of faith.
“Let’s go dancing.”
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