Sun Devil women's hoops team 3 point favorites over TBA today

As you will know from an earlier post, I am not a big fan of the ASU athletic department's website(s). It's a little like shooting fish in a barrel, but here's more evidence of why something needs to be done.

I don't follow the women's basketball team closely, but I am vaguely aware that the Pac-10 tournament is starting this weekend.

So to get details, I first go to the home page at TheSunDevils.com. I see an article about Aubree Johnson and Emily Westerberg being named to the All-conference team, but nothing about the tournament.

Next I go to the women's basketball page. As of 6:25 a.m. AZ time on Friday, March 2, the page has no mention of the Pac-10 tournament.

Assuming I was mistaken, I go next to the women's basketball schedule, where I am interested to see that on Friday, March 2, ASU will play TBA in the Pac-10 tournament. It is Friday, March 2.

I finally have to go to the Pac-10 website to find out that ASU got a bye, and will not be playing their first game until Saturday, where they will face the winner of today's UCLA vs. Washington State matchup.

Come on people! How do you expect people to be interested when you can't even bother to promote your star program properly? You've got the #7 team in the nation, and you can't even keep their schedule up-to-date?

Why hasn't ASU been better?

Over the past 10 drafts (1997-2006), 2,522 players have been drafted from 243 different schools. 14 schools have had 38 or more players selected in that time frame:

Per NFL.com
1. Miami (Fla.), 67
t2. Florida State, 66
t2. Ohio State, 66
4. Tennessee, 61
5. Georgia, 54
6. Florida, 53
7. Nebraska, 52
t8. Southern Cal, 45
t8. Virginia Tech, 45
t10.Michigan, 43
t10.Wisconsin, 43
12. LSU, 40
13. Oklahoma, 39
14. Arizona State, 38

from reviewing that list you would think that ASU should have been consistently ranked in the top 20 over the last decade. Obviously that is not that case but the question is why? From a closer look at the numbers we can see that ASU has been living off of the 96 Rose Bowl team for those numbers. 17 of those players were eventually drafted.

Plummer 2nd 97
Redmond 3rd 00
Battle 7th 97
Paulk 3rd 99
Poole 4th 97
Jennings 7th 00
Roque 2nd 97
Ruegamer 3rd 99
Rodgers 3rd 97
Swada 6th 97
Amey 7th 98
Staat 2nd 98
Smith 3rd 97
VonderAhe 6th 97
Simmons 5th 98
Richardson 6th 98
Tillman 7th 98

Another group of 7 players during that time were recruited and signed by Bruce Snyder.

Flowers 1st 00
M Smith 2nd 00
T Smith 4th 00
J Ioane 4th 00
Archuleta 1st 01
Heap 1st 01
Leyva 5th 01

that makes 24 of 38 players that were recruited and played under Snyder for their entire time at ASU. Leaving 14 players that were drafted after Snyder was fired. 11 of those were actually recruited by Snyder.

Jones 1st 02
Peters 4th 02
Scott 4th 02
Kosier 7th 02
Suggs 1st 03
McDonald 4th 03
Bates 4th 03
Karney 5th 04
Walter 3rd 05
Hodgdon 3rd 05
Verdon 7th 05

That leaves an astonishing low number of 3 players that were signed and played only for Dirk Koetter.

Shivers 5th 04
Hagan 3rd 06
Williams 4th 06

I do realize that close to a dozen of Koetter's signings still in the program that will be drafted over the next 4 years. Still under Koetter its clear the talent level dropped. One could argue from these numbers that Koetter was actually a very good coach just not a great recruiter. Snyder on the other hand consistently brought in talent; he was just incapable of consistently sustaining a big time program.

The myth of the '97 Rose Bowl prevent defense

I've posted this numerous times before, but it's an assertion that still pops up on message boards from time to time. It was a myth in 1997 and it's an infamous myth today: ASU played a prevent defense that led to Rose Bowl defeat and a loss of a national championship.

Prevent defense by a strict definition is three down lineman, two linebackers, and six defensive backs. The down lineman shoot gaps while the linebackers and and DBs drop into a deep zone -- often times what's considered Cover 4, with the safeties and corners dropping way down the field. The theory is there's not enough time left for an offense to drive down the field, so create a scheme that all but eliminates the big play.

As the saying goes, prevent defense prevents you from winning, and I don't necessarily disagree with that.

What ASU used was a mix of man, zone blitz, and zones. They kept four linemen in at all times, and used the safeties in a Cover 2. Was it softer than most of the coverages they'd shown Ohio State all night? Yes. But factors had played into the decision:

- ASU had already been burned twice in good man coverage, once for a touchdown.

- The depth at corner was not good, and Ohio State's bigger, faster receivers had worn out the DBs all night long. They were out of breath.

What ASU employed was not unusual, and it wasn't even new to the defense. They had used some zones and zone blitz all year long. Dropping the backers into a medium net made sense, especially when you're trying to force a QB into throwing too short or too long. It accounted for part of their improved success in most every category that year. It was in fact working against Ohio State, but ASU could not get a stop on third down. Joe Germaine made three very good passes to convert on 3rd down three times on the drive.

The touchdown pass from Germaine to David Boston showed exactly why ASU didn't want to throw a lot of bump coverage into the mix. ASU safeties were playing the deep inside, and freshman CB Courtney Jackson was playing an inside technique. They were taking away the slant. Boston showed inside and Jackson bit, then faded into no-man's land as Boston spun outside and caught a pass without a defender within three yards of him.