The drama and excitement of National Signing Day is over, but that doesn't mean that the weekend will be void of Sun Devil athletic action.

The weekend kicks off tonight when the gymnastics team battles Utah State in an away match up in Logan, Utah. The tumbling, leaping and vaulting kick off at 7:00pm.

Saturday will see both the men's and women's basketball teams go hunting for Golden Bear on the hardwood. Both games tip-off at 2:00pm, with the men in Berkley, and the women in the friendly confines of Wells Fargo Arena (get your tickets here).

If you're in the mood for some cool weather, head up to Flagstaff to cheer on the track team as they compete in the NAU Open.

For those SoCal Sun Devils, the women's water polo team, No. 6 in the entire nation, competes in Riverside as part of the Cal Baptist Tournament.

On Sunday before an underwhelming Super Bowl, come out to Tempe to cheer on the 19th ranked women's tennis team as they take on San Diego at 11:00am, and then an hour later head to Wells Fargo Arena to watch the Sun Devil wrestlers make Stanford tap out.

In the event you somehow find yourself in Tucson (our condolences), the women's golf team will be taking part in the Wildcat Invitational.

Follow me on Twitter @BDenny29 for the latest ASU news and analysis

It's been a rough year for Arizona State sports.

The football team imploded down the stretch, head coach Dennis Erickson was fired and the ensuing search was a fiasco. The men's basketball team has battled turnovers, eligibility and suspension while compiling a 7-14 record. Baseball is talented as ever, but will be ineligible for postseason play.

However, submerged below the surface of those woes is a Sun Devil team coming off a top 10 finish a season ago and who currently hold the No. 6 ranking in the nation.

After a season opening win over No. 17 UC Santa Barbara, the women's water polo team competed this past weekend in the UC Santa Barbara Winter Invite tournament. The Sun Devils dominated the competition en route to a 4-0 finish in tournament play..

An opening game 17-2 thrashing of Santa Clara served merely as prelude to the second match, a battle of top 10 powers. The sixth ranked Sun Devils faced off against the seventh ranked Anteaters of UC Irvine. ASU took an early lead and later leaned heavily on their talented defense to secure a thrilling 9-8 win.

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The SB Nation iPhone app v1.1 is now available for download in the App Store! We heard your feedback and suggestions, and we listened, making improvements to the comments, FanPosts and the overall experience. Oh, and we made sure it was compatible with iOS 5.

Now, in addition to helping you stay on top of all the latest news and commentary for SBNation.com and all 300+ SB Nation blogs, version 1.1 includes:

• Faster loading comments to help you follow along in real-time
• Vastly improved comment experience, including the ability to jump to the next unread comment, mark comments as read and reply in-line
• FanPosts
• Blog colors of your favorite sites
• An in-app browser

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Is there any group, business, or entity that is more corrupt than college football right now?

College football is currently a mess with less credibility and ethical standards than former representative Anthony Weiner.

“I think [NCAA President] Mark Emmert put it well,” SEC commissioner Mike Slive told ESPN.com’s Ivan Maisel. “We may have lost the benefit of the doubt at the moment with the public.”

The NCAA MAY have lost the benefit of the doubt? There should be no ‘may have’ in this statement at all. The NCAA has clearly lost the trust of the public.

If anyone still believes college football is not in a downward tailspin then they are either clueless or work for the NCAA.

While plenty of fans want to believe their beloved game of college football is played the right way, it is hard to ignore the facts of this year alone.

In his column, Maisel lists the image problems the NCAA is currently facing.

The 2010 national champion, the University of Auburn, is currently under NCAA investigation.

The 2004 national champion, USC, was found guilty of violations and was ordered to vacate their title.

The U.S Department of Justice wants to talk to the BCS about potential antitrust infractions and the Fiesta Bowl had to endure a scandal that involved executives taking private vacations and frequenting strip clubs.

Jim Tressell, the head coach at Ohio State, was forced to resign after it was discovered he lied to NCAA investigators amid plenty of other NCAA violations.

If that list seems long and exhaustive just remember it covers this year alone.

An Inside Higher Education analysis shows defiance of the rules is a widespread problem.

“The review finds that 53 of the 120 universities in the NCAA’s top competitive level, the Bowl Subdivision, were found by the Division I Committee on Infractions to have committed major rules violations from 2001 to 2010.”

The USA Today has also reported that, “0.03% of colleges in the nation’s six major football-playing conferences have never had a major NCAA infraction.”

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I know that this is an ASU website and people come here looking for articles about the Sun Devils and if you were looking for an ASU article I am sorry and I promise I will have one for you next week.

However, the length of the NBA Playoffs really bothers me and I just had to put it out there. If you only wanted to read about ASU, I’m sorry, otherwise, enjoy…

The first game of the 2011 NBA Playoffs was on April 16.

Game seven of the NBA Finals is scheduled for June 14, 2011.

That’s two months of playoffs. Playoffs are supposed to be the most exciting, fascinating and interesting time in a sports’ season, but the length of the NBA playoffs takes away from their appeal.

The NBA playoffs drag on longer than, and are just as unbearable as, trips to the dentist.

Obviously there are plenty of people who love basketball and enjoy all that is has to offer, but two months of playoffs is nothing short of excessive and unnecessary.

“The NBA regular season ended so long ago that you almost forget they are still playing for THIS year’s title,” NPR’s Frank DeFord said. “June is simply no time for winter sports…it’s June.”

While length is the primary problem, the flaws in the NBA playoffs extend far beyond what DeFord mentioned.

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Whether or not college athletes deserve to be paid seems to be an annual offseason debate.

Those in favor of paying the players often begin this argument by stating the fact that coaches and universities make millions and millions of dollars off of these athletes, while the players, the ones people pay to see, are not being paid.

The other side always counters and says that the athletes are given a free education, and everything that entails, which is worth plenty of money.

Those against paying athletes also often mention Title IX and talk about gender equality saying you cannot pay football and basketball players while ignoring other non-revenue sports.

While the argument seems to resurface in the same circular motion each summer, people never seem to understand that collegiate athletes do not deserve to be paid; a college education is plenty of compensation.

As far as Title IX is concerned, a university would need to pay all athletes, but not necessarily in equal amounts. Yes this is unfair, but that is simply the nature of the beast. Those that earn more revenue deserve more income.

Others argue that non-revenue sports should not be paid at all, but that is simply ludicrous. The WNBA certainly pays less than the NBA, but it does pay. If you are going to pay some athletes then all athletes deserve to be paid. Otherwise the universities will face a whole slew of discrimination lawsuits almost immediately.

But while deciding how much to pay athletes from different sports is an interesting topic, it is also an irrelevant one because athletes are not paid now, and never should be paid in the future.

Paying athletes would potentially help avoid recruiting and other "pay-for-play" scandals that are all too prevalent in Division-1 football and basketball, but athletes already have a pretty sweet deal and there is no need for the pot to get any sweeter.

In his column on the school's website, Penn State assistant coach Jay Paterno, Joe's son, perfectly illustrates why collegiate athletes do not deserve paychecks.

"Let me start the argument by making a proposal to parents and students alike," Paterno writes. "I am going to ask you to work no more than 20 hours a week for 21 weeks - with at least one mandatory day off every week. For another 23 weeks you'll work no more than eight hours a week. You'll get eight weeks off. (These are all NCAA-mandated time limits)."

That is a total of 604 hours of work throughout an entire year. It averages out to 11 hours per week, how many or you either have, or know someone who has a part-time job and works more than that?

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