stAte vs Toledo basketball
Apparently you guys visit this neck of the woods Tuesday. Here are the basic things to understand before the game begins.
1. Basketball is not considered important at ASU. In fact its existence is barely acknowledged by our fan base. Especially in December. Our fans traditionally show up for two games a year...UALR and Western Kentucky. Otherwise...no point. If you guys beat us by 30, we'd just assume its because our team sucks and we would go on about our football business. Basketball exists at ASU to kill time between the end of football season and Spring Practice/Conference Baseball
2. It didn't use to be this way. In the 1980's we were considered a highly ranked mid major, and we often played games in front of 8,000 or more. We hired an Idiot named Dickey Nutt in the 90's. He led us to our first NCAA tourney, and our idiot AD responded by giving him a lifetime contract. Fast forward to 2008, and we've fallen apart, are in a world of APR hurt, and are last in the Sun Belt. We hired John Brady, and he led us back to semi respectability, but has been unable to replicate the success of the 80's.
3. By definition, we are a decent Sun Belt School. We'll finish top 5 of the league, often top 3 with regularity. We are very tough to beat at home, and win a lot of home games. Including at least one upset at home each year. Last year MTSU lost one league game...at ASU. However we never get farther because we traditionally stink in OOC play, and we never get past the semifinals of the conference tourney. In that time, football became the sport at ASU, and all others are secondary. Rest assured, our athletic department will barely notice our basketball team sometime around Early January while everyone heads off to Mobile to play Ball State.
As for the team. We start 5 seniors. Only two were starters were last season. Two starters are senior transfers playing their only year here. Leading Scorer is Melvin Johnson, who is near the top in the country in 3 point percentage, but struggles defensively. Kirk Van Slyke vills the void down low, but can get out physicalled. We play good defense at home, but give up entirely too many points on the road. We're 5-3 with wins over Jackson State, Tennessee Martin, Central Arkansas, Lamar, and Niagra, and losses to Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. All of our losses are on the road.
Playing in Jonesboro is difficult. Murray State's best team nearly lost to us here.
As you know, we're in the middle of a football coaching search. The X factor is that search. If we make a hire by Tuesday, he gets introduced at the basketball game and 5,000 fans show up to see him. If we don't make a hire. About 2200 will come, and the place will be a ghost town. The rest will be talking about coaching rumors.
Questions?
|