Herb Sendek caught a huge break on Thursday as Rihards Kuksiks decided to return to Tempe for his senior season.
Kuksiks was the Sun Devils leading scorer last season, but there were concerns that the 6'6" Latvian sharpshooter would opt to play professionally in Europe instead of returning to school. He spent much of August in Europe competing for Latvia in the 2011 European Championships, which increased the speculation that he wasn't coming back.
Rihard Kuksiks has decided to return to Arizona State.(photo credit: AZStarnet)
If Kuksiks had departed, it wouldn't have been a shock. Leaving college to, essentially, play in basketball's minor leagues abroad is slowly becoming a fad. Last summer, Nick Calathes, Terrence Oglesby, and David Huertas all left school for an overseas contract. This year, Manhattan's Rico Pickett and UC-Riverside's Kyle Austin have both headed abroad, while reports have Michael Dunigan going to Israel. Greedy Peterson is headed to Greece, but he was kicked out of school.
But Kuksiks is coming back, which means that Arizona State will have their best shooter. Kuksiks will help to keep the floor spread for slashers like Ty Abbott and Trent Lockett.
Arizona State has a really good group of player on their perimeter. There is scoring, there are shooters, there are athletes. When this club gets hot, they are going to be tough to beat.
When I wrote my Pac-10 preview a week ago, I did it under the impression that Kuksiks was gone. I picked Arizona State sixth. Now, that looks like it is too low.
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