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ASU Takes on Alabama State in NIT Opener |
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Written by Basketball Net
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Monday, 17 March 2008 |
 Tempe, Arizona - Arizona State University's Men's basketball team will host Alabama State University March 18 for the first round of National Invitational Tournament.
The Sun Devil Ticket Office will be offering tickets to season ticket holders beginning at 9 a.m. Monday for Tuesday night's first-round game against Alabama State (20-10), which tips at 8 p.m. Season ticket holders will be allowed to purchase seats in the same location as their season tickets until noon. Tickets will be priced at $15 for lower level seats and $10 for upper level seats. Student tickets will be priced at $5 each. The sale of tickets to guarantee a season ticket location will only be available until noon on Monday due to the short time until the game.
The Arizona State's men's hoops team, 19-12 and 9-9 in the Pac-10 under second-year coach Herb Sendek, continues its season with a chance to become the nation's most improved team from one year ago as it makes its 10th appearance in the NIT and its first since the 2004-05 season as it hosts Alabama State (20-10) Tuesday at 8 p.m. PT/MST on ESPN2. ASU has won 19 games for just the sixth time in the past 25 seasons and a win would give ASU 20 wins for just the fourth time in 27 years. The Sun Devils (picked to finish ninth in the Pac-10 preseason media poll) notched nine Pac-10 wins for just the third time in the past 13 seasons (11-7 in 2002-03 and 10-8 in 1999-2000) and went 5-4 in the second half of the Pac-10 with road wins at NCAA-bound Arizona, Washington and Oregon State and home wins vs. the NCAA-bound duo of Stanford and USC. Only UCLA and ASU beat both Stanford and USC, as ASU notched wins over RPI top-60 teams Xavier (9), Stanford (14), USC (28), Arizona (twice, 37) and Oregon (58) with freshmen making a league-leading 87 starts, playing more than 46 percent of the minutes and scoring more than 51 percent of the points. Freshmen James Harden earned first-team All-Pac-10 and All-District IX USBWA honors while junior Jeff Pendergraph earned third-team accolades. Coach Herb Sendek earned the west coast media Coach of the Year accolades with his District IX USBWA honors.
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