The week that was in college basketball: 5 biggest takeaways

LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 22: Head coach Bobby Hurley of the Arizona State Sun Devils looks on against the USC Trojans during a NCAA Pac12 conference college basketball game at Galen Center on January 22, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images) /

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If we were basing it on merit, the Arizona State Sun Devils would be the top-ranked team in the entire nation.

Time to hurl the tub out with the bathwater, friends. There’s no more dancing around it. Every projected great team in the nation has fallen … except for the Georgetown Hoyas!

I kid. Georgetown still stinks. You and I could gather three random friends and equate to the level of opponents the Hoyas have played so far. We only bring them up before we get to the week’s actual biggest story: a team that played a legit non-conference schedule so far and is doing wonderfully with it.

ASU Is The Best Team In The Nation (Based On Merit)

Fresh off beating the Kansas Jayhawks in Phog Allen Fieldhouse, a legitimate case can be made that no team has as impressive a resume as the Arizona State Sun Devils.

Before we rattle off that resume, let’s note that merit doesn’t inherently equate reality. It is early, things can happen, filter in some variables, and all that jazz. Bluh. Bluh. Bluh.

Anyway, Arizona State has so far beaten Kansas, St. John’s, Kansas State, Xavier, SDSU, and a few other filler teams.

That’s a bunch of more than solid teams.

Mind you, the Sun Devils are doing this while Duke lost to Boston College, Michigan State previously fell to Duke, Kansas lost to ASU, and Villanova only has a lone great win.

The preseason strength of schedule infers ASU’s non-conference isn’t great, but it will look as such by the season’s end. A bunch of NCAA Tournament — or, at worst, fringe NCAA Tournament — teams, as well as toppling a program like Kansas on the road? That is more legit than MC Hammer in baggy pants.

We recently covered Tra Holder’s excellence on this fine website, but it isn’t only a one-man-show in Arizona. Shannon Evans has developed into Holder’s near-equal and Romello White might be the most underrated freshman in the entire country.

Had White entered college basketball with anywhere near the hype of his diaper dandy brethren, we’d be discussing his 17-9 counting-stats like he was the next coming of the world’s most famous carpenter.

Even if you disagree with the idea that, based on merit, Arizona State is the best team in the country, only poor arguments are around in regard to discussing them in terms relative to anything other than being the most exciting team in the country.