Arizona State is one of those deceptively difficult jobs. Bill Freider, Rob Evans and Herb Sendek were not bad coaches, and they couldn't win there with any level of consistency. There is not a culture of basketball in the state, so like every other school west of the Great Plains, they have to recruit Southern California, which is hard. They get some talent, but not enough to separate from all the other schools recruiting those areas.
I think the fact that it is so freaking hot there is also a challenge in recruiting. I think Lute Olson's job at Arizona is one of the most amazing program building efforts in college sports history, and he would be right there in the pantheon with Calhoun if Olson wasn't such a choker in big games. He turned that place into a destination and one of the top basketball programs in the country, which was not easy.
