In the most unforeseen, unpredicted and unanticipated act of the college basketball season, the Washington Huskies could win ’em all.
This is no joke.
The Huskies have become the accidental default champion of Pac-12 basketball — and it’s not yet February.
Not much stands in the way of Washington becoming the first team in Pac-12 history to finish 18-0.
Sure, this is a bit premature. And it’s almost blasphemous to think that a team ranked in no one’s Top 25 could do what Hall of Fame coaches Lute Olson, Ralph Miller and Mike Montgomery could not.
But as you study Washington’s schedule, it becomes clear there is no Impossible Mission ahead. Home games against UCLA, USC, Utah and Oregon all could be difficult. Or not.
The old Hec Ed Pavilion will now overflow with a fine madness, the type last seen during Lorenzo Romar’s glory days a decade ago. Empty seats? None.
The Game of the Year in Pac-12 basketball will be Washington’s visit to Arizona State on Feb. 9. It will be this conference’s Duke vs. North Carolina.
Could it be that the Huskies and Sun Devils are at the start of a Pac-12 takeover, unseating struggling Arizona and UCLA? Is it possible that Wells Fargo Arena and Alaska Airlines Arena will replace the singular words that have come to define Pac-12 basketball — McKale and Pauley?
No, that’s not what’s going to happen. UCLA and Arizona will soon be back in the big-time basketball business.
But it’s not unrealistic to imagine a Pac-12 of the 2020’s with four powerhouses, not two. And that’s because Washington coach Mike Hopkins, he of the befuddling, Syracuse-inspired zone defense, and ASU’s Bobby Hurley are two of the league’s better coaching hires in the last 40 years.
Washington coach Mike Hopkins, left, has the Huskies atop the Pac-12 at 7-0. ASU’s Bobby Hurley, right, has transformed the Sun Devils from plodding to exciting in his four years at the school. The teams meet in Tempe next week in what may be the league’s game of the year.
You can make a case that Hurley is the most impactful basketball coach to enter the league since Stanford hired Mike Montgomery away from Montana in 1986.
Hurley has basketball bloodlines — Duke — that no one in the league can match. His foray into coaching is no longer considered a novel, let’s-see-if-he-can-coach-as-well-as-he-can-play experiment.
His upgrades at Arizona State reflect his demeanor. The Sun Devils are aggressive and expressive.
They are not fun to play. To an outsider, they are easy to dislike, and that’s just the point.
He’s no Herb Sendek, no Rob Evans, no Bill Frieder.
Five significant college basketball coaching changes were made in the spring of 2015 and of the group, Hurley had the most daunting challenge, coaching a historically irrelevant college program in an NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL city.
Here’s how he has done against the other 2015 hires:
Shaka Smart has gone 61-59 at Texas.
Avery Johnson has gone 69-53 at Alabama.
Ben Howland has gone 70-49 at Mississippi State.
Rick Barnes has gone 75-45 at Tennessee.
Hurley, who has gone 64-53, and has done more with less. His best should be yet to come.
Here are four ways in which Hurley has put ASU in position to play Washington in a Pac-12 Game of the Year:
1. Attendance at Wells Fargo Arena was 5,985 the year before Hurley arrived, and an average of 6,178 in Sendek’s last five ASU seasons. Under Hurley, ASU averaged 10,603 last year and 9,975 this season.
2. The Sun Devils have become more fun to watch and therefore more attractive to recruiting prospects. ASU averages 71.5 possessions per game and 71.3 last season. Both are in the top 52 nationally. In the five years before Hurley arrived, ASU averaged 65, 67, 64, 62 and 62 possessions, which was as low as No. 296 nationally.
3. Arizona State is averaging 79 points per game. Last year it averaged 83, which was No. 17 nationally. In Sendek’s last five seasons, ASU averaged 61, 64, 69, 71 and 75. The Sun Devils were never nationally ranked in that five-season period, not even for a week. They never won an NCAA Tournament game. Hurley hasn’t won an NCAA game, either, but his teams have been in the AP Top 25 on 14 occasions.
4. Hurley’s incoming recruiting Class of 2019 is ranked No. 34 by Rivals.com. The Class of 2018 was ranked 24th.
None of Sendek’s final five classes were ranked in the top 100. Instead, there were a glut of players named Andre Spight, Willie Atwood, Chance Murray and Eric Jacobsen in the old, ineffective ASU recruiting classes. Now ASU puts potential all-conference players like Remy Martin, Luguentz Dort and transfer Zylan Cheatham on the court.
The remaining knocks on Hurley are (1) that he has gone 0-6 against Arizona and (2) his teams have peaked early, opening 12-0 last year and then fading, going 8-12, and opening 7-1 this year and back-sliding to go 7-5 since.
He can conquer both of those criticisms by beating Arizona on Thursday night at Wells Fargo Arena, and then chopping down trend-setting Washington on the same court next week.
A lot of basketball analysts gave up on the Pac-12 a month ago. Hurley and the Sun Devils are among the few with a chance to rearrange those dire forecasts.
