Arizona State’s Ray Anderson: ‘It was time to upgrade the program’

TEMPE, Ariz. — Following the announcement of former Arizona State men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek’s dismissal, athletic director Ray Anderson held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the decision and future of the program.

“My opinion of Herb is that Herb is an outstanding man. I respect him and I admire him,” said Anderson.

“But the challenge was, very frankly, to improve the performance of the team. When we extended him last year, we did so because I thought the recruiting was going well and thought we had improved our assistant coaches.

“But I also really believe that the performance could be elevated. And very frankly, that didn’t happen this year, in my opinion.

“So my opinion of Herb as the man has not changed and won’t ever change, but I came to the conclusion, over the course of the season, taking everything into consideration that we were able to evaluate, that we weren’t going to get ‘better-enough’ in the time frame that we had to be playing at a competitive level.”

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