Men's hoops notes after win in Tucson

The ASU men's basketball team edged the Wildcats 73-69 in Tucson last Sunday. The Sun Devils (19-8, 9-5) have won three in a row and five of six while Arizona (13-13, 7-7) dropped its second straight at home and its fourth of five overall.

Arizona State Sun Devil quick notes (19-8; 9-5)

• ASU won Sunday in Tucson for the third straight season, just the third time a team has won three straight times in the past 27 seasons at Arizona. Mike Montgomery's Stanford squad won four straight from 2001-2004 while Ben Howland's UCLA squads won three straight from 2006-08.

• ASU is now 3-1 under Herb Sendek in Tucson, it was 1-22 (.179) in the 23 previous trips.

• ASU is now 29-21 (.580) in Pac-10 games the past three seasons, the second-best record in that time. UCLA is 36-14 (.720) in that time to lead the way, while Washington is 29-22 (.569) and USC (28-22/.560).

• The Sun Devils are tied with UCLA for the best Pac-10 road record in the past two seasons as it is 9-7 (.563) with two wins at Arizona, Oregon and Oregon State and single wins at UCLA, Stanford and Washington State. Other Pac-10 road records in past two seasons are Cal at 8-9, UW at 7-8, WSU at 6-10, UA and OSU at 5-11, USC 4-12, UO 2-14 and Stanford 2-16. After losing its first eight Pac-10 road games under Herb Sendek, ASU is 14-12 since. ASU will try and win its fifth Pac-10 road game for just the sixth time in school history this weekend. It was 8-1 in 1980-81, 7-2 in 1979-80 and 5-4 in 1994-95, 1982-83 and 2008-09.

• With the win over Arizona ASU is now 12-3 (.800) in the past three years when Herb Sendek has five full days in between games.

• ASU was one of just seven schools to have two draft picks in the top 35 last year (James Harden was the third pick and Jeff Pendergraph 31st), joining North Carolina (three), USC, Louisville, Wake Forest and UCLA.

• This years marks the first time ASU has posted three straight winning seasons since Bill Frieder led ASU to five straight from 1990-91 to 1994-95 (worth noting last year was the first time ASU had posted back-to-back winning seasons since those same five seasons). ASU has posted at least 18 wins in three straight seasons (ASU was 25-10 last year and 21-13 in 2007-08) for the first time since the 1991-93 seasons.

• ASU has produced 65 wins in the past two-plus seasons, just the third time in school history a three-year period has produced 65 wins. ASU is trying to reach 20 wins for the third straight season after reaching 20 wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1979-80 and 1980-81. ASU has not had three straight 20-win seasons since the 1960-61 (23-6), 1961-62 (23-4) and 1962-63 (26-3) teams racked up 73 victories. Entering this season UCLA, Stanford, USC and ASU were the only Pac-10 schools to notch 20 wins in each of the past two seasons.

Most wins over a three-year period in ASU history
1960-61 TO 1962-63 (73-13/.849)
1961-62 TO 1963-64 (66-18/.892)
2007-08 TO 2009-10 (65-31/.677)

In the past 12 games ASU is scoring 33.3 points in the first half while allowing just 26.6 and is holding its opponents to just 35.5 percent field goal shooting (117-330) in the opening 20 minutes. ASU is 9-3 in that stretch.

Most improved
The Pac-10 last season started a Most Improved Player Award and the inaugural honor went to Washington's Justin Dentmon. This year's first-half leader might/could/should be Sun Devil junior Ty Abbott...he is averaging 17.8 points and 6.5 boards in the past 12 games and is 46-of-99 (.465) from the three-point stripe in that time...averaging 6.3 boards per game in Pac-10 play...and why the most improved tag? Abbott is 73-of-153 (.477) from the floor, 46-of-99 (.465) from the three-point stripe and is averaging 17.8 points and 6.5 boards per game in Pac-10 play. Last year he shot 19-of-86 (.221) from the floor, 8-of-59 (.136) from the three-point stripe and averaged 2.9 points and 3.7 rebounds in Pac-10 play...has played in 95 games in his three-year career and started in 84...when Abbott scores in double digits, ASU is 36-10 (.783) and 24-6 (.800) the past two seasons.

Ty Abbott Career 20-point gamesAREER 20-POINT GAMES
30 vs. California (Feb. 18, 2008)
29 vs. Stanford (Jan. 30, 2010)
28 at Arizona (Feb. 21, 2010)
25 at California, 2OT (Jan. 17, 2008)
21 at Oregon State (Jan. 16, 2010)
20 vs. California (Jan. 28, 2010)
20 vs. #13 Syracuse, NCAA @Miami (March 22, 2009)

Derek Glasser continues to climb up the ASU career minutes list. Eddie House has the career mark, playing in 124 games from 1996-2000 while notching 4,164 minutes (33.6 minutes per game).

ASU career minutes
1. Eddie House (1999-2000)--4,164/124 games/33.6
2. Jeremy Veal (1994-98)--3,980/122 games/32.5
3. Jeff Pendergraph (2005-09)--3,801/126 games/30.2
4. Derek Glasser (2006-10)--3,738/125 games/29.9

ASU is 6-1 against Arizona in its past seven meetings after UA had won 24 of the previous 25.

Derek Glasser now has 42 assists and just 13 turnovers in eight career games against Arizona.

ASU has held the Wildcats to just 62.4 points per game in nine games under Coach Sendek and is 6-3, while in the 39 games prior (1987-88 season through 2005-06), UA had averaged 86.6 points and went 34-5.

Sunday marked the 20th turnover-free game in Derek Glasser's 125-game career.