(Photo: Riley Trujillo/WCSN)
After a week of smiles following the Arizona State Sun Devils’ victory over the rival Wildcats, Bobby Hurley’s team had momentarily reached the pinnacle of success, but the smiles faded Thursday as 8-14 Washington State Cougars beat the Sun Devils 70-91.
“I don’t like to make excuses,” Hurley said. “There are none for what happened tonight.”
When the Devils took the court on Thursday, riding high on the wave of momentum built up by a Territorial Cup victory, they felt untouchable. Hosting a team in Washington State that had just one win in Pac-12 play felt like a surefire win. After missed free throw and missed free throw, missed three-pointer after missed three-pointer, the penciled-in win was quickly erased.
The Devils went down early. Making just 10 of their 27 first-half field-goal attempts, it was apparent the metaphorical hangover from the win against Arizona loomed much larger than anticipated. The poor performance from the field was punctuated by an opening half that saw the Devils miss all of their eight three-point attempts.
“There really wasn’t anything overly positive you could say,” Hurley said. “This was a pretty damaging loss for us.”
The Devils most prominent first-half blunder came in the ball security. ASU turned the ball over a total of eight times in the first half alone, giving the Cougars plenty of fuel to pull off an upset.
Where ASU faltered, the Cougars thrived. In half number one, WSU made 16 0f 34 field goal attempts and an astronomical nine three-pointers. The Cougars out-rebounded the Devils 22 to 20 in the first half and made sure that Hurley’s frustrations be voiced early on.
“We were missing free throws, we were not helping ourselves at all on the offensive end,” Hurley said, visibly annoyed by his squad’s struggles in these areas.
The second half was just a continuation of the trend set early. The only difference between halves was the second saw fans clear out of the stands much earlier than the final buzzer. In the latter portion of the contest, the Devils piled on 25 more three-point shots and made just five of them. They finished the game shooting 33.8 percent from the field.
“I take a loss like this very personally,” senior forward Zylan Cheatham said. “No loss is better than another. They all hurt.”
When ASU took the court it was never supposed to be a testing matchup. The task was to beat a team in Washington State that, prior to their matchup against Arizona State, had only beaten Cal in Pac-12 play. Instead, for ASU, it was a contest packed to the brim with all of Hurley’s nightmares.
“When you aren’t playing well you have to limit your bad mistakes and we made a lot of them,” ASU’s head coach said. “You can’t, across the board in so many different categories be inept.”
The missed threes, the missed free throws and the sloppy defense were the story for the Devils and the opposite could be said for their underdog opponent. Robert Franks, the leading scorer in the Pac-12, piled on 34 points against ASU.
“It’s pretty easy to see why Franks is a potential top NBA candidate,” Hurley said.
In the grand scheme of things, the loss severely hurts ASU’s chances at a spot in the March Madness Tournament. A loss to a school at the bottom of an already weakened Pac-12 conference leaves ASU in need of a Pac-12 tournament victory to play this March. But, beyond the hopes for March’s madness is hope for cleaner play. Hurley certainly needs it.
Up next for the Sun Devils is the far more formidable Washington Huskies. If Thursday night’s loss is any indicator, the Devils could be in for a long game against the better of the two Washington schools.
