Rising out of the desert
Sun Devils try to put past in past, March in their future
Posted: Friday January 22, 1999 10:21 AM
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Evans says he likes the way the program is headed Jonathan Daniel/Allsport |
By John Donovan, CNN/SI
ATLANTA (CNN/SI) -- No team in college basketball has had it rougher in the past few years than Arizona State. A devastating scandal. Coaching changes. Too many losses.
If there's one thing the coaches and players in Tempe, Ariz., don't want to hear about, though, it's the past few years.
That was then. And right now, the Sun Devils have a lot more important things on their minds than the basketball team's shady past.
Like, for an example, the NCAA Tournament.
Yes, the Sun Devils figure they're on the rise again -- even with a so-so 10-8 record -- and a March date in the big tournament is within their reach.
"We know that we're close," says Bobby Lazor, the team's leading rebounder and a guy who knows a little bit about change in the college basketball world. "I think we believe that. We feel we have a good chance of doing that."
The Sun Devils were picked as lower-half fodder this year in the Pac-10 Conference, a league many people consider the best in the country. So far, that's where they're playing, if you look at their 2-4 Pac-10 record.
But a closer look shows three of their losses -- at Southern California, at No. 13 UCLA and at home against No. 9 Arizona -- have come by a total of six points. The loss to UCLA was a three-point heartbreaker in overtime, and Arizona State had a chance to beat the hated Wildcats of Arizona with a last-second shot, but it went awry and the Devils lost by one.
Unfortunately, the other loss came Thursday night at Oregon State, and it will have the Sun Devils doubters screaming again. The Beavers wiped out Arizona State, 81-51.
The other two Pac-10 games the Sun Devils have played went all their way, with wipeouts of Washington (96-72) and Washington State (91-63) at home.
"They're on par with just about anybody in this league -- certainly an NCAA team," Oregon State coach Eddie Payne said before Thursday night's game. "They're definitely on the verge of breaking through. Hopefully, we can delay that another game."
Arizona State can score -- before Thursday, the Sun Devils were third in the league, at 76.8 points a game -- but they're having problems on the defensive end, letting up a league-worst 77.8 points a game.
That's the No. 1 job for new Arizona State coach Rob Evans, who was hired away from Mississippi to rebuild a team torn by a 1993-94 point-shaving scandal, allegations of theft by athletes on campus and the ensuing changing of coaches.
Evans, 52, has started to turn the team around with a goodly amount of hard work -- with an attention to defense -- and he's instilled a belief that the Sun Devils can overcome their past.
"I absolutely like the way [we're] headed," Evans said -- before the debacle at Oregon State. "We've made a lot of progress. I really feel good about where we are defensively. And I feel good about out offensive execution."
One of the players Evans relies on most is Lazor. The 6-foot-9 forward is a senior who transferred from Syracuse, was recruited to Tempe by former Arizona State coach Bill Frieder, played last season under interim coach Don Newman and now is toiling under Evans -- his fourth college coach.
Lazor, who averages 18.9 points a game (third in the pac-10) along with his 8.5 rebounds (fourth in the league), says Evans is a disciplinarian, but not in the mold of a screaming Bobby Knight.
Coaching by fear?
"I don't know about 'fear,'" Lazor said. "You understand that if you don't do things the way they're supposed to be done, then you're not going to play. I don't know if that's 'fear' ..."
The biggest challenge Lazor and Evans and the rest of the Sun Devils face is turning those close losses -- the Oregon State game notwithstanding -- into wins in the next few weeks. Arizona coach Lute Olsen said this week that too many close losses, especially with a young or inexperienced team, can really affect morale.
The Sun Devils aren't all that young or inexperienced, really. They have three starters who can score consistently, and all are upperclassmen: junior guard Eddie House (19.8 points per game), Lazor and senior forward Mike Batiste (17.7 points a game).
Regardless, Evans will make sure morale stays plenty high no matter what the scores.
"It's not going to get distressing. That's my job, as a coach, to keep them focused," he said. "We're very demanding in practice. They don't have time to worry about that loss, or that win, for that matter. They have to worry about me and what my expectations are."
After Thursday night's nightmare at Oregon State, Arizona State has now lost 11 straight openers of Pac-10 road trips, a skid that's now almost three years old. The Sun Devils will need to get over that hump, and the hump of winning the close ones, if they stand a chance of making it to the NCAA Tournament.
"It's just been a box-out here, a blocked-out free throw there. It's execution. Getting back in transition ... Just the small things in key situations that help you win ballgames," Evans said. "If you put them in position long enough to win basketball games, then sooner or later, you're going to get some breaks."
That's exactly what the people in Tempe have needed for the past few years.
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