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It is a new era for Arizona State men’s basketball. The Pac-12 tenure is over and it is on to an even more competitive Big 12. How tough is that expected to be? Well, five Big 12 teams opened the season ranked in the top 10 nationally.
Preseason publications are high on the Big 12, too, as Lindy’s pegs five in the top 10 and another inside its top 25.
The SEC likes to claim supremacy in most sports and some coaches cited it in men’s basketball but Big 12 coaches stick up for their own.
“This is going to be the hardest year to win our league, in large part because of unbalanced scheduling, too, depending on who you play at home and who you play on the road and who you play twice and all those things,” Kansas coach Bill Self said at Big 12 media day last month.
“You look at it the way that maybe we used to, that it’s a win-the-league-at-all-costs deal. You look at it more as if we can compete and be at the top of this league, we’ve got a chance. Even though disappointment comes when you don’t win, you’d better be equipped to be disappointed some because nobody is going to run the table.”
Added Cincinnati coach Wes Miller:
“Everybody is going to beat the drum for their league. When people stand up here and say we have the best league, it’s not a slight towards anybody else’s league or disrespect. It’s fact. Just look at the numbers.”
So the likes of UCLA and Oregon won’t be stopping by Desert Financial Arena, but there will be some great games nonetheless. Teams will play 20-game conference schedules so there will be a lot of teams the Sun Devils will play only once. ASU’s first game of the Big 12 era will come on Dec. 31 when it plays at Brigham Young, a team it has faced in the past in nonconference play.
There will be two familiar faces donning different uniforms this season as point guard Frankie Collins is now at TCU after two years in Tempe, and Devan Cambridge is in his second year at Texas Tech after playing for ASU in the 2022-23 season. Cambridge played eight games for the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/arizona-asu-step-big-12-130039383.html
Author : AZCentral | The Arizona Republic
Publish date : 2024-11-09 13:00:00
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