ASU Men’s Basketball: Sun Devils put up dismal performance en route to a blowout loss

(Photo: Nicole Hernandez/WCSN)

A team that relies heavily on offense doesn’t have much chance to win on its worst shooting night of the season, and that’s exactly what happened to the Arizona State Sun Devils in their 68-43 loss to Cal on Wednesday night.

The Sun Devils shot 25.4 percent from the floor, undercutting their previous season-low of 32.4 percent, set on Nov. 20 against Davidson. It was the lowest scoring game of Bobby Hurley’s tenure, below the 46 ASU scored against Utah last season.

The Sun Devils scoring drought came to a head at the end of the first and beginning of the second half. Between 7:35 in the first and 16:47 in the second, ASU went o-17 shooting. The only points in that stretch were three free throws by senior forward Obinna Oleka.

The problems on offense looked solvable early on, as the Devils have had a bad habit of slow starts on offense this season. ASU went 2-10 to start but rebounded on the back of Shannon Evans to tie the game at 17.

“The number 17,” Hurley said. “We had a hard time moving off that number. Everything matters. Free throws that are missed and the missed shots. It could have been a lot closer.”

ASU managed to overcome the early shooting struggles with a bout of tough defense. Cal committed eight fouls in the first half, five of which were offensive fouls. The Devils forced a total of 11 first-half turnovers and looked to have a good shot at taking the lead.

Then the offensive collapse hit.

ASU, one of the most volume-shooting teams in the Pac-12, went 3-25(12 percent) from three. The Sun Devils weren’t able to attack the zone and took several contested jump shots, seeing none of them fall. ASU could not even cash in on free points efficiently, going 10-15 from the free-throw line, usually another staple for the squad.

“Last time we played Cal, they manned us the whole game with their two bigs,” ASU forward Kodi Justice said. “We got to attack. We got Rabb in foul trouble early. This game they zoned us the whole game and we just couldn’t figure out how to break it.”

Justice called the performance from his team embarassing, but Hurley assigned the blame more to himself and his staff.

“We didn’t, as coaches, put together a good enough plan to work against that so that we could find more success on offense,” Hurley said.

In a game with such low shooting percentages, no stat line for ASU looks positive. Oleka posted a double-double with 12 points and 14 rebounds, but shot 3-13.

Torian Graham, often the guiding force for the ASU offense, had his worst game of the season. He scored 2 points and went 0-9 from three.

On the other end, ASU once again had problems defending bigger matchups. Sophomore Ivan Rabb attacked the small Devils relentlessly, finishing with 14 points on 5-8 shooting. As a team, Cal shot 26-55 from the field and 8-23 from three. Bears’ guard Grant Mullins went 6-9 from deep by himself.

The Devils got an early advantage in rebound totals, but ended up bludgeoned on the glass, grabbing 29 rebounds to Cal’s 48.

The struggles on offense left ASU with little option but to play its scorers and hope for a breakthrough. Freshman big Jethro Tshisumpa did not play in the game, as the rest of the becnh saw limited time as well, if any time.

The Sun Devils tried to fight back in the second half, but simply could not get any work done on the offensive end. The Golden Bears played excellent defense in transition, blocking and fouling at the right time, holding ASU to only 11 fastbreak points.

Arizona State (11-14, 4-8 in Pac-12) will have a chance to redeem itself on Saturday when they host the Stanford Cardinal. The Sun Devils beat Stanford on the road to open conference play on Jan. 30.