LOS ANGELES -- If Thursday's media poll is any indication, the ASU men's basketball team might as well get comfortable in the Pac-10 basement.
ASU was picked to finish dead last, exactly where it ended up last season after going 10-17 overall and 4-14 in the Pac-10. It marks the worst projected finish under seventh-year head coach Rob Evans.
Coming off a third-place finish, UA was picked first for the third consecutive season and for the fifth time in the last six years. UA is followed by upstart Washington and defending Pac-10 champion Stanford, which boasts former Mike Montgomery assistant Trent Johnson as its new coach. Oregon and UCLA round out the top five.
ASU has been picked last just twice in school history. In 1992-93, the Sun Devils finished tied for third and advanced to the National Invitation Tournament. In 1997-98, they finished tied for fifth and also qualified for the NIT.
The low projection didn't rattle Evans, whose ASU teams never have been picked to finish higher than fourth.
"The games are played in January, February and March. They're not played today," Evans said Thursday at Pac-10 men's basketball media day. "Based on how we finished last year, I'd probably pick us there, too. You can finish anywhere from first to last in this league very easily."
Maintaining his typical preseason guise, UA head coach Lute Olson downplayed his team's first-place projection.
"I'm a little surprised by it," said Olson, whose team garnered 19 first-place votes to Washington's seven. "It's a compliment to the program that we're being looked at in that position. We'd better be a lot better than we are now for that to happen."
Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar admitted that he picked UA as the favorite, even though the Huskies beat the Wildcats three times last season and knocked them out of the Pac-10 Tournament.
"Why was Lute surprised?" Romar asked. "I would pick them to win our conference. Whatever happened last year, you can throw that out the window. They get my vote as No. 1, despite what coach Olson says."
For Evans, being in the basement isn't new territory. He has been down this road before.
In Evans' fourth year at Mississippi, his team was picked last in the competitive Southeastern Conference, yet the Rebels managed to win the SEC West title, and Evans was named SEC Coach of the Year.
The following season, Mississippi was picked last again. Evans' team defied the pollsters for the second straight season, defending its SEC West title.
"I've been in this business so long that it doesn't faze me at all," Evans said. "If you finish there, then that's when you worry. You don't worry about where people pick you because it's based on a lot of unknowns."
When Evans asked sophomore guard Kevin Kruger about the preseason poll, Kruger said, "I hope they pick us 10th." Junior forward Ike Diogu concurred.
"Where other people pick us doesn't really matter because we're the ones who are going to suit up and play," Diogu said. "We know what we're capable of doing. We know what kind of firepower we possess, and we're going to have a good run in this league this year."
Reach the reporter at brian.gomez@asu.edu.
