Mornin Mates...

Today's Topic = Some Like It Hot

That was some game last night where Houston came back from the brink against Duke and ended up beating the Blue Devils at the buzzer...

Kelvin Sampson (69) has done it all during his stellar career at several schools that include the Montana Tech Orediggers where he started his illustrative career...

He then went to Wazzu where he did enough to convince Oklahoma to give him a chance, whereas at ASU we never would've considered him just like we passed on Mike Candrea and any number of capable coaches in favor of coaches that turned out to be duds...

Anyway, Sampson has been to Sweet 16s, Elite Eights and Final Fours but never won a national championship but I'll be pulling for him to do so on Monday night...

Maybe, our AD, Graham Rossini, will prove that he can make better coaching choices than his predecessors at ASU...

Hopefully, he will be able to navigate the new NCAA settlement that will allow us to share around $21M dollars amongst our 26 sports so that we don't lose further ground in the Big-12 in a sport like basketball...

Football will have a cap of 105 roster spots and Dilly will fill all of those slots with scholarships and basketball will be up to 15 scholarships, while baseball will be up to 34 scholarships...

I don't know if additional scholarship availability will help with either basketball or baseball if we don't have the right coaches in place...

It will also be interesting to see how NIL money will now be used within a school's discretion since they will now have oversight into that fake deal as things now stand...

I see where the Cats are going to extend Tommy Lloyd's BB contract in order to give him more say-so in how all of this settlement and NIL money is used at AU moving forward...

I trust that our AD is going to listen to what Dilly needs to keep our football program at a championship level but won't listen to what a coach on the way out like Bobby needs to be more successful...

Willie is counting on having his 34 man baseball roster on full scholarships next season and he feels that will be a game changer for his baseball program but we'll see...

Part of the game changing dynamic that will evolve, along with the NCAA settlement at ASU, will be when we finally aren't having to pay Ray and Herm for their awful efforts on our behalf in the recent past...

For they will finally be off the Sun Devil athletic dept books in the summer of 2026...

Bobby will also be off the books and it will be up to Rossini to earn his new $950K salary by getting a more competent coach in place for our basketball program...

I hope he doesn't pass over any coaches that will be future Kelvin Sampson or Bruce Pearl type coaches for another coach that doesn't have the "IT" factor needed to elevate our mediocre BB program...

Of course, hope, as we all know, is not a viable strategy to be successful in any thing...

Well, here's hoping we can do something against the Cats later today in baseball...

I also hope that Rossini likes it hot as there will be many hot issues to deal with in the Sun Devils athletic dept in the coming days, weeks, months and years...

Some like it hot like the recently deceased former Cats AD Ced Dempsey who hired Lute Olson in a very tough fiscal and NCAA environment at the school...

Will Rossini have the similar chops to take on difficult situations and thrive in a heat wave the way real leadership does in difficult situations..??

G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!

Jalen Williams has been a 4 star on rivals since August. As soon as he commits to ASU, all of a sudden he drops from a 5.8 to a 5.7 and is now a 3 star? Lol. Make it make sense. Anyone?

"We're nowhere near where we need to be, but we know the things we have to improve upon, and we know we're capable of doing something special.” A dominating performance on the mound and at the plate helped ASU earn a Sunday win in the Arizona series

“We are Duke fans. We know Coach Hurley's culture and what he accomplished. When he called me, it was a no-brainer. He checked all of my boxes." Oakland forward transfer Allen Mukeba discusses his pledge to ASU

On the night of the week and at the venue that welcomes the Sun Devil faithful, ASU held its first spring practice this at Mountain America. This allowed the fans a beautiful opportunity to watch the team perform and, more importantly, gave the team a more game-like environment under the lights of their home turf.

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Talented Nickel DB target out of Georgia

Arizona State is trending at the top here and we don’t think it’ll be long before he joins the class. Has his OV locked in

“I think it's with this lineup. You've seen what we're capable of, so I don't think we ever really get down. But we just kept following the same trap over and over, and it bit us today.” With the winning run at the plate in the ninth, ASU couldn't complete the two-out rally

"Hopefully, these next three weeks we find 6 to 12 more guys that we're like, ‘Man, we can count on you to help us.’" Increased depth and overall player improvement can only take place when underclassmen, even on the veteran team, make an impact

So on April 7 a U.S. District Judge will hold a final-approval hearing concerning the Revenue Sharing and NIL agreements

More here on the hire of Molly Miller with analysis from veteran women's basketball beat writer Jeff Metcalfe: "I think she could come in here and capture the imagination of the fans and the public, in general, a little bit like Kenny Dillingham has done. "

Another ABOR April 10th agenda item is expected to be approved, giving Rossibi a $300K raise this year and $100K each year thereafter, along with the usual academic bonuses. Keep in mind that this salary matches what Ray Ansderson is still making as a quasi-law professor or whatever the hell he's doing these days. Once his salary comes off the books, Rossini's salary kicks in.

My brother-in-law went to the San Antonio Spurs game tonight and shared this picture during a time-out skit featuring the Spurs's Coyote.



Gotta love it! Mad props to the ASU social media team for generating this kind of buzz! Extra points to the Spurs for calling us "ASU". We are THE ASU

“We didn’t play poorly tonight. We left a couple of pitches over the plate that they didn’t miss. The really only glaring thing is the two-out focus there in the fifth." Mid-game struggles on the mound and at the plate result in ASU's Friday night loss to Arizona