Averaged 18 ppg, 6 rpg and 6 apg

Historically ASU has had VERY little success with players that eventually signed and had verbally recruited prior to August (and really September)

......but the repeated extensions of the Dead Period in the class of 2021 (and now in the class of 2022) may have changed things a bit (and who knows if they will be as long lasting as the addition of the December signing period created in Dec 2017.............particularly when Official Visits appear ready to resume in 8 weeks................my guess is that things largely return to the norm as recruits hope for big senior seasons to attract blueblood offers that they had yet to receive...and that 2nd tier programs will have to once again wait for many of their recruits to eventually commit)

In the 2021 cycle we obtained 10 verbal commitments prior to August that eventually signed with ASU (Finn Collins/Jaydon Williams/Tommi Hill/Lonyatta Alexander/Gharin Stansbury/RJ Regan/Isaia Glass/Eric Gentry/Eddie Czaplicki/Austin Berry) and 2 more prior to September (Isaiah Johnson/Ezra Dotson-Oyetade) ..............and the 11 days from July 15-July 25 was HUGE with 8 verbals.

Those 12 ranged from recruits that we seriously considered cutting loose (Barry........and so glad we did not) to players that we hung onto by the skin of our teeth (Stansbury.....with heavy pressure from Penn St and Texas). 5 of the 12 enrolled in January, participated in Spring Ball and all 5 of those (Gentry/Collins/Hill/Glass/Regan) received rave reviews

With that alone I believe that the class of 2021 early commitments were the best in ASU football recruiting history. (it is no longer just on paper, but it is still undoubtedly early).............but now to add Johnson/Dotson-Oyetade/Williams/Alexander/Stansbury/Czaplicki/Barry, it simply blows away anything we have ever accomplished that early in any cycle. (and non-early commitment Bethea was a hit in Spring Ball)

There will undoubtedly be some failures (recruits that never become starters) but every day it appears more and more as those will be due to being over-recruited rather than being non-P5 starter-level-talent

The bad news for recruiting junkies was that the 2021 cycle only produced 2 more prep recruits (Sione Veikoso/Armon Bethea) from the end of August thru the final signing period in February that eventually signed with ASU. The good news is that the transfer market (particularly with the one-time immediate eligibility allowance for for non-grad transfers in 2021) kept us busy with speculation

.....and we added Jaylin Conyers (who already appears to be a non-brainer home run), Travez Moore (who also made it very clear that he will get a LOTTA reps in 2021) and Triston Miller (who's injury in Spring Ball left the early question marks to lingering)

Now in the class of 2022, we off to an even hotter start

But this time around there will almost certainly be Official Visits and the game goes back to the way it used to be played (at least to some degree................or does it?)

We are gonna have to bring a bunch in to the sweat box in June and then try to nail as many Official Visitors as possible this Fall (and unfortunately some important ones will likely have to be the weekend after the Southern Utah game and the weekend of the UNLV game (when it will still be scorching hot). Bring it on

Clearly, out coached, recruited & played again over weekend.
CTS still does not get the rivalry and the "rat shrimp" continued to eat his lunch!
Sorry SSP, our baseball program is going nowhere... not going to waste more time stating facts.
You either see the reality, or you continue to make more excuses & "hope" for a program turnaround.

Not much left here... apathy for many and this is where programs make desperate move.

WE Are There!

Memo to CTS: Embarrassing when a rat girls basketball team plays harder that YOUR baseball team!

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We all know about our pitching woes due to injuries but what about our hitting woes in Tracy's seventh season at ASU..??

These are PAC team hitting stats starting with RBI totals to date, followed by slugging percentage, followed by team hitting averages...

1) AU = 223 team RBI, .499 slugging percentage, and .321 team batting average

2) OSU = 164 team RBI, .450 slugging percentage, and .297 team batting average

3) Wazzu = 151 + .434 + .290

4) UCLA = 149 + .411 + .275

5) Stanford = 148 + .476 + .288

6) Oregon = 120 + .423 + .268

7) ASU = 118 + .414 + .281

We should note that teams have played different amount of games to a small degree and some have played more challenging games, than other teams, to date but I think there is enough data in so far to say that these trends will most probably hold throughout the rest of the season...

I wonder why with all the talent the Devils supposedly have they are not more offensively proficient in Tracy's seventh year at ASU, compared especially to Jay Johnson's sixth year at AU...

There will be the "Yeah But" replies from some of the board members and they will be justified to one degree or another but the hard reality for me, since we are destined to finish in the bottom half to bottom third of the conference, without enough wins to make the playoffs, that this all comes down to program leadership...

All teams go through cycles, both good and bad, but the Sun Devil cycles under Tracy, so far, seem to be pretty poor, especially this being his seventh season, compared to say the Cats and other teams in the PAC...

I'll leave it at that...Go Devils!!!

Jesse Morrison's recap from Tucson

As always, Top-3 finishers will receive a prize which is a gift card of their choice.

Here is the link

Group name: DevilsDigest.com 5268112

Password: SparkyHoops21


Note: The bracket reveal is scheduled to air at 3 p.m. AZ Time, but the full 68-team bracket — which includes First Four teams — won't be unveiled until the conclusion of the last conference tournament. So you may have to wait until this evening to start filling in your bracket.

Here are our notes and takeaways from the Sun Devils’ last spring session of 2021

I still think ASU is in very good shape with Duffy but now planning new visits to FSU and Michigan State is a little concerning:

I’ve been replaying his game winning 3 from last night over and over and I still can’t get over it. Holy cow what a special shot that was. His awareness, poise, control... incredible finish to a great game

I LOVE THE MADNESS

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CTT’s college coach, Tara Vanderveer grabs first title since 1992 and third overall.

Zach Keenan's recap from Saturday night's win

Mornin Mates and Happy Easter!!!

Today's Topic = Welcome to the Herd

That's what the paramedic told us last week when we received our second vaccination shots which, hopefully, will allow us to get back to a more normal routine that will let us go out to eat occasionally, catch a movie or show occasionally, and attend some sporting events, once in awhile, just like the good, old days...

Thankfully, we've all had this website to comfort us during these very trying and deadly times...

Also, thankfully, the PAC men and women's basketball teams have done extremely well this post season that has not only given us national recognition but also given us a lot of loot with which to use as we see fit in the coming years...

According to what I have read in the Daily Star, each PAC team will evenly split almost $40 million ($39.9M) or receive $3.32 million per team this year, that includes our Sun Devils, from our men's tournament units based on wins throughout the Big Dance...

This then becomes part of a six year rolling average of "paid units" to the PAC that will look like this the next six years...

2022 (for 2016-21 tournaments) = $338,887 unit value = $6.44M per team (per six year rolling average)

2016 PAC tournament units = 11

2022 (for 2017-22) = $340,669 UV = $6.47M per team (per six year rolling average)

2017 PAC units = 14

2024 (for 2018-23) = $342,486 UV = $6.51M per team

2018 PAC units = 3 (yuck)

2025 (for 2019-24) = $348,972 UV = $6.63M per team

2019 PAC units = 7

2026 (for 2020-25) = $359,092 UV = $6.82M per team

2020 = 0 (tournament canceled)

2027 (for 2021-26) = $369,506 UV = $7.02M per team

2021 PAC units = 19 (Yeah)

Total PAC Units Over Those Six Years = 54

So, total PAC-12 payout for 2022 = $18.3M or $1.52 million per school

Thanks to Colorado, Oregon St, Oregon, USC and UCLA for enhancing our loot very significantly this year!!!

Hopefully, in the coming years, ASU will start adding to that yearly pot, too...

Changing gears, there was nothing in the football Spring Game to deflate any of our expectations for this next football season...

We've got an outstanding all-conference type QB, a plethora of very good running backs and receivers that includes a TE who actually looks the part, and a good, solid offensive line that has lots of experience so not much downside there, if you ask me...

Defensively, we seem to have plenty of talent and depth everywhere and our special teams look like they will be just fine, too...

Our defensive backfield has gone from no big deal to the strength of the defense it would appear...

There is no doubt that we will most likely be picked to win not only the South Division but the conference title as well...

There does not appear to be any teams throughout the PAC that have more talent than we do but there are no cakewalks in the conference, from week to week, as we all know, so nothing is guaranteed, ever...

On another note, our men's BB team is in the midst of a complete transformation and Bobby is adding a lot of new players to the roster that all have nice resumes so there is renewed optimism about the direction of his program...

Finally, it was a relief to beat the Cats in baseball last night 3-2 to at least not get swept at home...

I don't see how this team, given the pitching issues, due to serious arm injuries, can win enough games to qualify for the post season much less make a move to the CWS...

And, it will be interesting to see how RA responds to another potentially agonizing and underachieving season...

Well, I hope that most of you have joined The Herd and that we can all start to get back to our regular routines in the coming weeks and months...

Just remember what John Wayne reportedly said...

"Life is tough and it gets much tougher if you're stupid"...

G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!

Doug Feinberg, the national women’s basketball writer for the Associated Press, did a roundtable discussion with Charli Turner Thorne, Cori Close (UCLA head coach) and JR Payne (CU head coach) ahead of the championship game. CTT said some interesting stuff. Here is the link:

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Junior LHP Justin Fall starting for the Sun Devils, freshman RHP TJ Nichols for the Wildcats.

ASU looking to salvage a win out of the series loss.

Here is a list of things I think you need to do to bring the conference back to a high level of relevancy

1. Secure us a lucrative new TV deal

2. Re-build our officiating personnel system.

3. Get us on Direct Tv

4. Quit agreeing to all these late night broadcasts of our games. (If I think an 8 or 9pm start is too late and I live in AZ, what does the rest of the country think)

5. Bring back the Harwood series we played with the Big 12 in basketball

6. Fire Bill Walton from our TV broadcasts. (My final straw last night was when he was saying how great of men Larry Scott and Sean Miller were)

these are some of the main ideas I have. What are the rest of your thoughts? What do we need to have happen?

Mac Friday's recap

with 20 starters returning this was an EXTREMELY unique Spring for ASU football

ideally you have all 20 plus the 2 other leading contenders for the 2 open starting roles...........along with 22 others in the 2-deep, healthy and fully participating

it's football and that will never be the case, but that said, if there were going to be starters out, it would be preferable that they be players with tons of experience and the least need for development..............and that is what we got

On defense, Evan Fields/Tyler Johnson/Jermayne Lole are all very experienced (unfortunately Joe Moore, Stephon Wright and Amiri Johnson................a projected 2020 starter prior to injury..................were not able to take advantage in the Spring)

T Lee/Kejuan Markham/Shannon Forman/Cam Phillips/Travez Moore/Anthonie Cooper were the primary benefactors and all did well

On offense TE Curtis Hodges missed practices and Jaylin Conyers benefitted greatly. With Frank Darby rolling the dice on the NFL, Andre Johnson got his shot and with Cade Cote electing not to return for a 7th season, Ladarious Henderson took a vacant 5th OL spot

It all worked out well for development..........................now if only Stephon Wright/Joe Moore/Amiri Johnson can get fully healed and get in some type of football condition in the next 3 months, it may all be for the best

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Junior forward Chris Osten has entered the transfer portal, according to VerbalCommits.com.

The 6-9 post player averaged 2.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game in a reserve role this season.

With Jalen Graham returning, and the commitments of Enoch Boakye (verbal) and Will Felton (signed), Osten may have seen even less action next season.

It’ll be interesting to see if Pavlo Dziuba follows suit or stays around in Tempe to provide additional depth in the frontourt.

Zahid Valencia and Tanner Hall (both were seniors in 2019-20) and Frank Molinaro (current assistant coach, wrestled at Penn State and for the 2016 Olympic team).

The trials air on NBC Sports and Peacock April 2-3. Full list of participants and seeds here.

Jesse's game recap