Sun Devils’ celebrations a sign of what it means to beat KU

When Washington knocked of Kansas at Sprint Center last Wednesday night, the Huskies ripped off a wild celebration in the Sprint Center locker room that left head coach Mike Hopkins soaking wet and smiling.

Sunday, at Allen Fieldhouse, UW’s Pac-12 brother, Arizona State, took that celebration one step farther after knocking off the second-ranked Jayhawks on their home floor.

ASU coach Bobby Hurley, like Hopkins, was greeted by a celebratory water bath when he returned to the Sun Devils’ locker room, but the fun was far from finished there.

In addition to a wild trip home with lots of smiles, hugs and high fives for everyone, the 9-0 Sun Devils, who are poised for a big jump in the polls, were greeted by a big crowd when they returned to campus in Phoenix on Sunday night.

Fans first began flocking to the ASU basketball facilities a couple of hours after the game went final and they stayed until long after the players had hopped off of the bus.

Granted, it’s easier to go stand outside in December in a place like Phoenix, where the weather is good year round, but the fact that they did it, on a Sunday night no less, was a clear sign of what this win meant to that program.

While those images and the memories of this game might be hard for KU fans to relive, the reason they’re interesting is that they show just what it means to beat Kansas.

It’s not as if this is some low-major school that has never won much and just pulled off the upset of the century. The ASU program, though down of late, has had big moments in the past, is a Power 5 program, is coached by one of college basketball’s all-time greatest players and features an alumni directory with the name James Harden in it.

So, ASU has had its share of basketball moments. But this is by far the biggest moment it has enjoyed in a while and, even though it’s still just early December, the Sun Devils’ fan base, which showed up in impressive numbers at Allen Fieldhouse, and the team itself took the opportunity to celebrate it to the fullest.

Doing so proved to be the ultimate tip of the cap to Kansas. After all, after knocking off Xavier by 16 a couple of weeks ago, there was no such celebration. And Xavier is a legitimate Final Four and national title contender this season.

But the Musketeers aren’t Kansas.

Our own Bobby Nightengale recently wrote a nice blog about what it feels like to beat Kansas. In it, he talked to a handful of Big 12 players who have experienced the feat.

While each offered their unique insight into something that has been pretty rare during recent years, none of them talked about a celebration quite as charged up as the one the Sun Devils delivered from the moment the final buzzer sounded to the time they turned the lights out on Sunday night.

While the aftermath of their big win might seem like overkill to Kansas fans who don’t really celebrate that way until NCAA Tournament time, it’s worth noting because it shows not only how ASU is a team on the rise but also how fortunate the KU program has become.

It’s been years, decades even, since wins like this would have sent Lawrence into a similar celebration and that speaks to the wild consistency of greatness and incredibly high bar that has been set for the Kansas program.