Arizona State at USC

The battle of complicated defenses and offenses took place at the new shiny Galen center in Los Angeles. What turned the game for good was the 4th foul called on SoCal super freshman star James Harden, at which point the USC Trojans took the game over and grabbed the W.

Daniel Hackett showed some onions by trying to play despite his injury, and his minutes and commitment were enough to help his teammates delivery the Condom fans a much needed home win.

Arizona State is who we thought they would be. Fans who do not follow the Pac-10 closely, or just look at conference standings, without drilling through the records, thought they were a top 25 team at some point. Not so! As we all know now, Xavier is one of the top 10 craziest teams this year, so blowing them out like that was not such a big deal.

Where are they going from here? USC has a reasonable chance for an NCAA tourney tid (thanks to OJ Mayo as a ratings grabber, and their Durant-killah game last year). Meanwhile ASU should be happy and excited for a CBI or NIT bid. Expecting an NCAA bid would be a sign of irrational exuberance at this point. However, because the Pac-10 is so tough, and because of the Pac-10 tourney, they could still pile up enough quality wins (or win the whole thing) to find themselves in the NCAA tourney. But don't count on that!