Herbivore allergies
That Thursday's game wasn't easy for Sean Miller comes as no surprise if you consider history.
Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek, after all, handed him some pretty painful losses as ASUโs head coach.
In 2009-10, Sendekโs Sun Devils beat Millerโs first UA team in McKale Center, 73-69, all but ensuring the Wildcats would break their NCAA tournament streak of 25 years (which is now just a 10-year streak, since the 1999 appearance was vacated because of NCAA violations).
As it turned out, the Wildcats finished the season 16-15 and didnโt go to the NIT either.
In 2011-12, ASU beat Arizona 87-80 at Wells Fargo Arena, sending the Wildcats to 21-10 in a weak season for the Pac-12 and prompting Solomon Hill to correctly declare "we just popped the bubble."
In 2013-14, the Sun Devils knocked off a UA team ranked as high as No. 2, winning 69-66 in double overtime. The win caused so much distress in the UA locker room that no Wildcat players were allowed to speak with media afterward and Miller's postgame address was cut off by the teamโs PR person after three minutes and 11 seconds.
In 2014-15, ASU again won at Wells Fargo Arena, this time 81-78. It was the Wildcats' third and final loss of the regular season, but enough to knock them down to a No. 2 NCAA tournament seed in the West. That ultimately provided an opening for Wisconsin to slip into the West as a No. 1 seed โ which in turn paved the way for Arizonaโs second straight fruitless meeting with the Badgers in the Elite Eight.
