"He's a Swiss Army knife; He's a connector, too, and he makes everyone around him better." More here on 6-foot-7 Jaion Pitt, ASU basketball's latest 2025 pledge, a Canadian native who represented his country in various tournaments

“Guys have done a good job. We've thrown a lot at them. They've done a really good job of understanding the intensity and deliberateness." Harsh words on the offense's Tuesday display were followed by a much stronger session by the players in maroon

I will try to Lighten Snake River's load on B12 Baseball updates moving forward ......... as of last Sunday, March 2, ncaa rankings only had 1 B12 team ranked - Okie St @ #25......and as Snake R pointed out, they lost 2 games this wk to what look to be pretty average group of 5 schools, so does NOT look like they will be standing come tomorrow's new ncaa poll....they actually sit @ #13 in B12 non conf record, just ahead of tx tech

Link below to B12 standings 1 wk prior to conference play starting - Devils open up @ tcu Friday night
* https://big12sports.com/standings.aspx?path=baseball

Couple brief highlights.......W Virginia sitting @ top @ 13-0; Kansas 12-1; Baylor 10-3, C Florida, Utah @ 10-3.....Devils 10-4, tucson tech @ 9-4, which is not bad knowing they have played some decent nationally ranked teams..........now the current rankings which are based solely on Non Conf games are haphazard @ best, not knowing how tough their schedules have been.......outside of Minnesota (who i think will finish in top half of B10) and ucla (who i know has talent), do not think we have played above avg compeition either .....but starting friday things will start to settle into place

Other thoughts would be surprised @ Tx Tech being 3-9, as they usually have decent teams.......

Conf Stats
* Team batting - Devils @ #7 @ .285......leaders include C Florida, W Virginia, Kansas, utah, baylor all @ .310+....so room for improvement here
Other - lead B12 in St Bases @ 39 .........5th in on base %...........10th in # strikeouts, so bad........and 4th in walks, good........3rd in H Runs, 3rd in Doubles

* TEam Pitching - Devils #9 @ 4.71 ERA.......leaders include C florida, W Virg, baylor all @ sub 3 ERA..........kansas, utah, tcu @ sub 4 ERA......so gain room for improvement
*** Pitching stats other - Walks given up we are 8th, so bel avg..........Batting Avg against #7 @ .237, so right in middle........Strikeouts #1, so more K's by our pitchers than any team

* Def - - Devils tops in DEF based on # errors per chances, so we do have that going for us


More coming prior to TCU series

I'm interested in the board's opinion on this one.

“It’s really good that everyone came back. Now we’re into this second year, and this is gonna get even bigger, better.” Roster continuity, vast experience, and unerclassmen shinning have defined a stout ASU defense and its spring performance

Compared to previous spring sessions, Thursday featured a true back-and-forth between offense and defense, with some players having their best practices to date. Here are our observations from today

Not a bad addition under the circumstances

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At this point his own arrogance and lack of coaching ability has backed his "career" into a serious dead end.

Had he left after the 2023 season he could have used the excuse of "lack of institutional investment" as the reason and other schools would have gladly bought that, hired him to a long term deal with a raise, and he'd be their problem now. By staying and absolutely imploding the past two seasons, he can no longer use that excuse as it comes off as disingenuous. No program with all of the things he wants would hire him. Any program who would be willing to hire him won't have those things, and thus him complaining about them will be a turn off to them as well. Coming back for a third straight disasterous season will do further damage to himself.

bob at best is going to need to do a major rehabilitation to his value if he wants to continue to making college coaching a career. At worst, he's basically done in the profession. At this point he'll need to go back to a low mid-major, if one would have him, and try to win enough to one day get a shot at a high mid-major or better. The issue is that people will always look at how badly things went when he was coaching at this level and that will always be a knock against him. For me his best chance at redemption would be to swallow his ego, work out a severance package with ASU that GR can live with, appeal to Rick Pitino to work under him and rebuild his reputation with the possibility of taking over St. John's in 5+ seasons.

We don't know what will happen as there are lots of games left to be played. We do know that he only has one year left on his contract, which means that Rossini will have to make a decision by March. So this isn't to argue whether he will be retained or not, or whether he should be or not. This is us assuming a change will be made and to look at possible candidates.

I would love Will Wade, but I don't think ASU has a realistic shot even if Rossini and Crow were on board with him given that he is a Clemson grad and has always coached in the southeast. Clemson's coach has been there 14 seasons and he just took them to an Elite-8 last year, so he's not going anywhere. I do think there will be a lot of programs coming after Wade starting in April as his show-cause expires. I would think that Miami would be a great fit for him.

Chris Mack is very intriguing to me. Born in Ohio, played at Xavier. Killed it at Xavier when he took over, after being Miller's assistant, when Miller left for u4. He actually did better at Xavier than Miller had. He took over Louisville 2 season after Pitino departed. Struggled there somewhat (Covid being part of his tenure there) and then was dismissed for something to do with an assistant trying to blackmail him and him recording the conversation. Weird for sure. Now at the College of Charleston after their former coach left for Louisville. He's currently at 15-4 and doing well.

Who do you all like?

My former videographer Nick Borgia, posted this and wanted to share for those who didn't see it yet

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“If you think you've arrived because you're ranked, you haven't. We're not where we want to be." Humility serves ASU well. A day after they found themselves back in the top 25 rankings for the first time since 2023, they proceeded to beat CSUF in a mercy rule victory

"This season will haunt me more than any other season I’ve had where I haven’t made the tournament because there were a lot of pieces in place to do it.” Once again, an undermanned ASU team played well in long stretches but ran out of steam in the last game of the 24-25 season