Athlon Sports: ASU’s football-basketball coaching tandem ranks in middle of Pac-12
Feb 21, 2015, 1:47 AM | Updated: 6:46 am
Todd Graham has experienced a great deal of success in a short amount of time as the Arizona State Sun Devils’ football coach. Under Herb Sendek, ASU’s men’s basketball team is fresh off an NCAA Tournament berth in 2013-14.
But those facts apparently failed to impress the folks at Athlon Sports, which ranked the Graham-Sendek duo No. 7 in its Pac-12 football-basketball coaching tandem rankings released Friday.
Athlon Sports based its rankings on the coaches’ combined ability to keep each school’s fan base satisfied from the beginning of football season until the end of basketball season.
Will Graham be the coach to fully tap into Arizona State’s potential? Graham is already the first Sun Devils coach to finish in the top-25 in back-to-back years since 1996-97 and the first to win 10 games in back-to-back years since Frank Kush. Next up is a Pac-12 title.
Sendek has two NCAA appearances in nine seasons and he’s fresh out of James Hardens.
Graham is 28-12 in three seasons at ASU. He led the Sun Devils to a Pac-12 South championship in 2013, a pair of bowl victories, and back-to-back wins over UA in 2012 and ’13.
Sendek is 155-133 in eight-plus seasons in Tempe. He guided the Sun Devils to NCAA Tournament appearances in 2009 and ’14.
Arizona came in first in Athlon Sports’ rankings. Oregon State was ranked second and Stanford was third.
