It took 1 men’s basketball game for ESPN to call ASU the Wildcats

It’s 2020. Seemingly everything is different. Unprecedented. The new norm.

But even with everything changing, we still promise you one thing is the same: Arizona State University is the home of the Sun Devils. The University of Arizona houses the Wildcats.

Unfortunately, there’s another thing that hasn’t changed, and it is very related to this. Some nationally still mix up the names and the mascots.

After ASU men’s basketball’s season-opener victory over Rhode Island, ESPN’s push notification had a glaring error … in the first word.

“Wildcats hold off Rams in opener,” the message read.

It’s not that hard, is it?🤦‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/Df5hJ4aMCc

— FOX Sports Arizona (@FOXSPORTSAZ) November 26, 2020

To give ESPN credit, they did eventually send out a correction. Many outlets over the years have simply let it go.

Maybe it would help if we came up with some sort of mnemonic device. Arizona State has two words, as does Sun Devil; Arizona and Wildcat are both one word. ASU contains an S, which Sun Devil starts with. Arizona and Wildcat are both seven letters.

We apologize for the snark, but this isn’t the first time a non-local outlet has mixed up the schools, or the mascots, or the logos. We expect this to happen! We know it’s a tricky pairing.

We had just hoped that it would take longer than one game.

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