The Arizona State Sun Devils picked the final game of the regular season to play their best and they knocked off their in-state rival, the Arizona Wildcats, 87-80. In beating the Wildcats, the Devils all but knocked Arizona out of contention for an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. Now it would seem that the Cats' only shot at March Madness is to win the Pac-12 Tournament, in which they are the number four seed.
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This scenario was eerily similar to what happened to the Sun Devils during football season.
↵ASU was already in a sort of a tailspin, but a win over the Wildcats and a little help would have landed them in the Pac-12 Championship game. Instead, the Devils could not stop the Wildcats offense and the Cats won 31-27, all but eliminating the Devils from winning the Pac-12 South division.
↵The Wildcats coming into the game on Sunday would have felt that scoring 80 points would beat the Devils on any Sunday, but it wasn't to be. Now, the Wildcats had their season ruined by the team that was ruined by the Arizona football team.
↵The season for Sun Devil fans has been more or less unbearable. But as rivalries go, if you can pull off one win in a season, beating your rival school can almost erase a season of frustration. This is one of those cases.
↵Sports are a funny thing. So is karma. It seems that on one Sunday afternoon, the two crossed paths and the Wildcats were the unfortunate recipients of said encounter.
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