ASU Basketball: Crucial Weekend

This weekend, the ASU men’s basketball team enjoys a home stand by hosting Utah and Colorado.  Every conference game is critical.  However, home games are at a premium.  Home victories are critical to maintain hope for post-season play.  While the Utah/Colorado games are not necessarily traditional conference matchups for ASU, these two games are of huge importance.

     The National pundits will argue that ASU conceivably could split this weekend’s games and be okay; particularly if they beat Utah and lose to Colorado.  Colorado is seen by most as one of the better teams in the PAC-12 behind Arizona.  And they are pretty good.  Their record indicates that. 

For the players and coaches, all this “talk” is nonsense.  They play and coach with the goal of winning every time they take the court—no matter who they are up against.  It’s the fans, analysts and writers that try to strategically break down who their team can or can’t afford to lose to.

This Sun Devil squad is on the verge of being in a bad place, mentally.  Their confidence and self-image are hanging in the balance after getting blown out the last two games on the road against top quality opponents.  They just need to win a game, any game, to believe in themselves again.

     To take it one step further, if ASU truly belongs in the top tier of the conference, or rather, if they think they belong there—they need to sweep this series.  They need to beat both Utah and Colorado at home, thereby sending a message to everyone else that they are not merely an afterthought. 

But most importantly, they need to send that message to themselves—that they are good enough to compete and that they are still in the hunt for a PAC-12 tournament title, an NCAA tournament berth, and respectability.