By the skin of their teeth, Arizona State makes the tournament

The Sun Devils had to do plenty of sweating Monday morning, but they are in the tournament.

After several potential bid stealers - notably Cal Poly, UConn, and Kentucky - got crucial wins over the weekend, Arizona State was frequently cited by many bracketologists as being either the last team in or the first team out. It would all come down to how much the committee valued the Sun Devils' fifth place finish in the Big 12.

As it turns out, they valued it just enough.

Arizona State will now head to Los Angeles as one of the last teams to make it in a regional that stacks up quite nicely for them. UCLA will host the regional, with their first game against Mountain West champion Fresno State. Meanwhile, the Sun Devils face UC Irvine, who fell to Cal Poly in the Big West championship game.

The selection for Arizona State represents a huge sigh of relief. The program has never seen a tournament drought for four straight years, and missing this year almost surely would have marked the end for head coach Willie Bloomquist.

Now, he's got some more games to coach, with a real chance at making some noise with a pretty talented club. At the very least, it's nice to know that the Sun Devils' four-game skid - getting swept by Oklahoma State and getting shut out by BYU in the conference tournament first round - will not be the final memory of this year's team.

Arizona State was one of eight teams from the Big 12 to make the tournament. The SEC led the way with a whopping 13 teams, including claiming all four top seeds, while the ACC had nine teams get in.

The Sun Devils' first game of the Los Angeles regional will be on May 30.