Progress for Arizona State Basketball On and (Off?) the court…

When I negotiated with KTAR Radio to come to Phoenix in the Fall of 1993, we hit a snag. It wasn’t so much over the compensation; it primarily concerned Arizona State basketball. The person making the hire was stunned that I was dug in on not leaving San Diego if I wasn’t going to be part of the broadcast for Sun Devil basketball “no one pays attention to the basketball program,” he said.  At the time, I was the play-by-play voice of San Diego State basketball and loved the energy and excitement around college hoops. The play-by-play voice for Arizona State was the legendary Tom Dillon(why he is not in the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame is beyond an oversight). Eventually, the radio station accommodated my wish, and we came to Arizona.

Even though I haven’t been a part of the Sun Devil broadcasts for coaches’ shows or games in any capacity for many years, I still pay close attention to the football and basketball programs. The regular reader of Three Dot Thoughts knows that “Always Something University” came to be in recent years with shenanigans happening on and off the field and court. I’ve never questioned Bobby Hurley as the head coach. I personally like him and professionally feel he’s as good a coach as Arizona State has had in many years. Desert Financial Arena needs to be upgraded; we all know that, and I feel bad for DFA writing checks for millions of dollars with no upgrade on the facility coming from the University anytime soon. It’s not a great way of doing business.

I dropped in Saturday night to see if Hurley’s team could start Pac-12 play at 4-0(it hadn’t happened since that Harden kid was in town). Colorado didn’t have super-freshman Cody Williams(Perry High School) available, which was too bad. He is going to be a tremendous player for years to come beyond college. Watching ASU tonight vs when I saw them against Northwestern, was night and day. Adam Miller certainly gives them a dynamic player to put alongside of Frankie Collins and Jamiya Neal. ASU can score, but they are less than woeful regarding free throw shooting(last in the conference). Missing nine free throws, as they did vs Colorado,  in March games will send you home pretty quickly. The bright side is the Sun Devils are a perfect 4-0 in conference play, with just one game next at Washington before UCLA and USC come to the Valley…

What does NIL look like to the average Arizona State booster? Arizona has no problem traveling around the world to find talent. Arizona has figured out NIL for football too. As many had thought, none of their stars have left for the SEC. It goes back to having a president and athletic director committed top to bottom to winning in football and basketball. There’s no question that what is happening in Tucson in the NIL game is a big success. When Washington played ASU in football this past season, the Huskies’ NIL on offense was 9 million dollars, according to people I trust implicitly. At halftime of tonight’s game, I had a thirty-year season ticket holder almost begging to find a way to help with NIL. It shouldn’t be that hard…