In coach Bobby Hurley’s first season at Arizona State, the Sun Devils men’s basketball team won 15 games and was bounced in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament by Oregon State. It was a rebuilding year, to be sure, but not a very good one. Arizona State didn’t even qualify for the NIT.
Still, some of the many thousands of Arizona State students thought not only that their team was good enough to make the NCAA Tournament, but that they could win the championship. A couple of University of Arizona students went to Tempe and got them on video. People just love being on camera, apparently.
Safety school? Just kidding.
But there’s a good reason for why many Arizona State students think their team is good when they’re not (aside from the curtain of distraction). They were being duped by skilled pranksters. The Arizona students are known as “The Flux Boys” (a somewhat sane name for a group of college kids on YouTube), and returning the favor on a prank Arizona State students played in Tucson last November. And with that knowledge, this is suddenly hilarious, instead of feeling like you’re watching a seal get clubbed.
Steph Curry and Jeff Gordon aren’t walking through that door in Tempe, though I bet Bobby Hurley would take them on his roster.
