After Sunday’s 70-68 victory over archrival UA, sophomore James Harden claimed ASU was finally a basketball school.

While a trip to the NCAA Tournament in March will help prove his case, so will a construction project slated to finish in May.

The Weatherup Center, the Sun Devils’ $19.5 million basketball practice facility, is on schedule to be completed by May 1.

With 49,000 square feet of space, both the men and women’s programs will have a new place to call home.

ASU men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek said the Weatherup Center will have an effect on both current and future ASU student-athletes.

“It will enrich and help Sun Devil student athletes across the board,” he said. “It will have a ripple effect. And second, it really will give us something to point to in terms of facilities in our recruiting process that we haven’t had up until this point.”

The ripple effect Sendek mentioned alludes to the fact that the basketball teams aren’t the only ones who use Wells Fargo Arena. The ASU gymnastics and wrestling programs also use it for home meets.

However, the Weatherup Center will probably have its greatest impact on the recruiting side of things. Last week, Sendek said recruiting is the most important part of any basketball program. What better than to show kids a shiny new building that will be used almost exclusively by the basketball teams?

On April 29, 2008, several players and coaches took part in the groundbreaking ceremony, which took place next to the ASU soccer stadium northeast of the University Drive and Rural Road intersection in Tempe.

The facility was made possible by a $5 million gift donated by Craig and Connie Weatherup. Craig Weatherup is an ASU alumnus and past CEO of Pepsi.

Aside from two full-sized practice courts, the building will also house coaches’ offices, film rooms, training areas and classrooms.

It is all part of the greater vision Sendek had when he took the job in 2006.

“If you would have said to me that we would have made this kind of rapid progress when I first arrived, I would have signed up for it,” Sendek said. “We started at the very beginning in every conceivable way. But having said that, it’s not like we’ve arrived at some destination.”

ASU went 8-22 in 2006-07, — Sendek’s first year on the job. ASU’s senior Jeff Pendergraph joked that he just tried to have fun during that season to get ready for the 2007-08 campaign.

Harden, of course, came aboard in 2007, along with a few other key recruits like Rihards Kuksiks, Jamelle McMillan and Ty Abbott. Since then, ASU has looked like a legitimate Division-I program.

“That was the overall plan,” Harden said. “I’m sure the other freshmen that came in with me had the same mindset: to come in here and change the program around. [ASU] had all the pieces — the coaches, the players that were here before. Everything was perfect.”

Reach the reporter at alex.espinoza@asu.edu.