Washington State at Arizona State

It was a tale of two "frustrations" and a comeback. At the start of the first half, Herb Sendek's mad scientist match-up zone gave the Cougars headaches. But as the half progressed, the Cougs started to "solve" the match-up zone.

The second half started in similar fashion but with the roles reversed. Arizona State was frustrated by the Wazoooo defense, and couldn't hit the desert from the Grand Canyon ;-)

Arizona State tried to make a comeback, and they came close to winning the game on the last play, but their prized freshman James Harden was unable to score on the tough Cougs d-fence, giving the Cougs a nice road win and giving them a +3 in the Tim Floyd Pac-10 standings.

As mentioned last week, Arizona State was not as good as their record looked, and that was evident in the way they melted down at Stanford last week, and their inability to win a game at home this week - although they did face a solid resurgenent Washington team and a tough team to beat in the Cougs. The NIT/CBI may look not enough given their record, but when you dig into their record, and also look at where they were last year, the NIT/CBI would be a great improvement year to year.