ASU Basketball: PAC-12 Announces 20-Game Schedule

Last week The PAC-12 conference announced that the men’s basketball programs would be playing the first-ever 20 game season this year.

This is significant because the PAC-12 has never played more than an 18-game conference season. The PAC-12 had announced during the 2019 offseason that they were planning to go forward with a 20-game PAC-12 schedule in 2020-2021, but the coronavirus pandemic put that in doubt.

It’s happening, though, and this would be very beneficial for ASU, who’s next step in the Bobby Hurley era needs to be dominance versus PAC-12 competition. In the past, they’ve sputtered in PAC-12 play regardless of how well the squad played in out-of-conference matchups.

It almost cost them multiple NCAA Tournament appearances in 2018 and 2019.

The Devils have the roster to beat up on almost every team, if not every team, in the PAC. They are currently projected as one of the conference front-runners due to strong recruiting in the 2020 cycle, as well as little talent leaving the program this offseason.

Playing a longer season versus competition that they have the potential to prove superior to is a prime opportunity to take that next step.

Just last year, ASU was the third-highest scoring team in the PAC. The offense will be their identity, yet again this season. They’ll even be adding to their impressive offensive numbers this year in the recruiting additions of world-class talent SG Josh Christopher and another promising offensive player in SF Marcus Bagley.

On top of that, SG Alonzo Verge is set to take a big step forward this year after showing tons of promise as a lethal scorer in the PAC-12 portion of last year. PG Remy Martin will be returning this year after he and Verge originally were headed to the NBA Draft. Martin was the third-leading scorer in the PAC last year.

Arizona State posted a top-four record in conference play last season. That’s incredibly encouraging when considering they’ve had a great offseason. ASU has disappointed under high expectations before, but the facts are that they look like a real conference contender on paper. The players and coaches should be feeling confident, heading into the season.

Especially when they’ll have even more games versus a conference that has very few teams, ASU doesn’t have the potential to put away.