The easy prediction is that Arizona rolls Saturday. That faced with a direct challenge to their in-state supremacy, the No. 17 Wildcats finally look like the team everyone envisioned and delivers Arizona State a painful reminder that the Pac-12 still runs through Tucson.
That’s the conditioned response. The result of so many ASU beatdowns at McKale Center – seven in a row – that they all bleed into one another to form one ginormous dreadful memory. Perfectly understandable. It’s hard to predict something people so rarely see.
But this conference opener might be different for one simple reason:
The ascension of coach Bobby Hurley’s program has been college basketball’s biggest surprise.