GLENDALE — DJ Horne may be a hometown hero for North Carolina State this weekend, but his personal path to the Final Four arguably started at … McKale Center, of all places.
Via a little transfer portal magic, of course.
Horne helped lead ASU to an 89-88 upset over Arizona on the Wildcats’ Senior Day in the 2022-23 season, scoring 18 points while shooting 7 for 14 from the field and dishing seven assists — setting the Sun Devils up enough so teammate Desmond Cambridge could finish it off in dramatic style with a 60-foot buzzer-beater.
“That game when we played Arizona at Arizona was probably one of the best games I’d played to that point,” Horne said Friday. “It always feels crazy to beat your rival, especially in an underdog situation. We weren’t supposed to win.
“Being at an arena like that where it’s basically a sea of red, everybody’s (cheering against) you, everything’s got to be attention to detail. To go in there and pull off a win like that helps you to really learn how hard it is to win and definitely shows you how good you have to be to beat your rival.”
The win at McKale helped launch Horne and the Sun Devils into the postseason while also gaining many of them NIL leverage. ASU was swept at USC and UCLA the following weekend but picked up two Pac-12 Tournament wins and, after the Wildcats earned some measure of payback with a 78-59 Pac-12 Tournament semifinal win, managed to pick up one of the last NCAA Tournament bids.
The Sun Devills went on to beat Nevada in a First Four game, lost to TCU just 72-70 in the first round and then split up, with Horne and eight other players hopping in the portal.
After spending two years at Illinois State and another two at ASU, Horne was finally a target of the Wolfpack, who play Purdue on Saturday in the first Final Four game. He signed on and started 35 of 39 games he played in this season, averaging 16.8 points and 2.1 assists.
Horne said he wasn’t upset that he was only a mid-major recruit out of high school, saying he knew he wasn’t a top player then, but said he’s an example of how the portal can help players move up — and earn some money in the process.
“Guys may start off at a small level and don’t have access to any NIL, then they prove themselves and they get to go to a big school that does have access to NIL,” Horne said. “I will say it will help guys in that situation the most.”
Arizona guard Courtney Ramey, right, manages to dislodge the ball from Arizona State guard DJ Horne in their 2023 game. Horne, now at NC State, helped the Sun Devils upset the Wildcats that day.
It wasn’t all bad
The NCAA has been giving athletes who participated in 2021-22 an extra year of eligibility, since that “COVID year” was heavily compromised by postponements, daily testing and arenas filled with fans made only of cardboard.
Nobody might deserve it more than N.C. State point guard Michael O’Connell, who was a freshman at Stanford that season, playing under Santa Clara County health rules so strict that the team had to relocate over the hill to another county, Santa Cruz, to practice and play all home games until February.
But when he looks back, O’Connell isn’t complaining.
“It was definitely interesting,” O’Connell said. “But honestly, it was pretty cool because we were always on the road, so we were always with each other. It’s a little different than when you’re on campus, everyone lives all over the place. When we’re all together all the time, eating meals together, you really grow close to the guys.”
Certainly, the on-court results would suggest it helped: Stanford went 5-0 that season in games played at the home of the Golden State Warriors’ G League team in Santa Cruz — including a 78-75 win over Arizona that broke the Wildcats’ 20-game win streak over the Cardinal.
Game faces
Both fans and teams had a chance to acclimate to State Farm Stadium’s wide-open basketball atmosphere Friday. The NCAA opened the doors, allowing fans free access to watch teams shoot around on the courts for 50 minutes each while each team’s cheerleaders, band and mascot went to work.
Several thousand fans sat in the open lower section of State Farm Stadium during each workout, while hundreds more milled around a concourse that had limited concession stands — including “Pork on a Fork” and “Lola’s Tacos” as well as multiple “Red Zone Bar” stands.
There were also several hundred fans who lined up for free orange T-shirts from Reese’s, which sponsored a college all-star game played later in the afternoon Friday.
Purdue’s 7-4 center Zach Edey practices Friday in Glendale, a day before the Boilermakers take on NC State in the Final Four.
Bittersweet appearance
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson spent 10 minutes on the main interview podium Friday, but wished it was for a different reason.
The Houston coach received the Associated Press Coach of the Year award after Houston won the Big 12 in its first season in college basketball’s top-rated conference, received a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed, won 32 games overall ... and then lost to Duke in the Sweet 16, two wins shy of reaching State Farm Stadium as a participant.
“I want to congratulate all the coaches that were up for this award,” Sampson said. “I can certainly think of two or three that are deserving, or probably more deserving than me to win this.
“Let’s start with the four coaches that are still playing. I would certainly trade places with any of them. I would rather be out there playing tomorrow afternoon with my team than winning the award. I would trade that for sure.”
Beauty sleep
After UConn suffered through a well-publicized six-hour delay that didn’t get the Huskies to Phoenix until 3:15 a.m. Arizona time on Wednesday, guard Tristen Newton almost seemed puzzled Friday when asked if he felt caught up with his rest.
“I am … I slept great last night,” Newton said, then turning to teammate Jaylin Stewart. “Yo, you caught up with sleep?”
Stewart nodded in the affirmative.
The big number
43 — N.C. State’s Kenpom ranking, well below No. 12 Alabama, No. 3 Purdue and No. 1 UConn.
Quotable
“Reaching the top shelf is pretty easy.” — Purdue center Zach Edey, when asked how being 7-foot-4 can be helpful in ways other than how he snipped the Midwest Region nets without using a ladder.
Bruce Pascoe is a veteran Arizona Daily Star sports reporter covering University of Arizona basketball. He has traveled with the team all the way to Israel and has been reporting at the Star since the late 90’s. Bruce worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal prior to the Star and he graduated from Northwestern University. David and Bruce talk about the highlights of covering basketball and sports in a college town, the difficulties of the beat, Bruce’s love for sports and where that came from and how his reporting impacts the community.
