ASU teases second-half comeback multiple times, but never truly threatens No. 6 Arizona

(Photo: Sam Polgreen/WCSN)

TEMPE — The hype in Desert Financial Arena was real with Arizona State basketball coming off its first ranked win of the season and No. 6 Arizona in town for the Territorial Cup, but that hope extinguished quickly.

The start was heartwarming with guard Jose Perez and forward Alonzo Gaffney — both graduate student starters — being honored before the game for senior night. Another ceremony honoree was junior guard Bobby Hurley Jr., who started for the first time of his career in his final game and played the first four minutes, grabbing two offensive rebounds in that stretch.

However, Arizona was clearly on a mission to end the party as soon as possible. The Wildcats started on a 11-3 run within the first four minutes of the game and never looked back. ASU (14-15, 8-10 Pac-12) teased a comeback multiple times in the second half, cutting the deficit to five at one point, but it was never enough in an 85-67 loss to Arizona (22-6, 13-4 Pac-12).

Even though the Sun Devils were down 14 at halftime, head coach Bobby Hurley felt good about his team’s chances of making a push in the second half.

“I felt like being down 14 was sneaky good for us,” Hurley said. “Knowing we had possession of the ball. Knowing that we settled for a lot of jump shots early in the first half and couldn’t really get anything done around the basket. I think when I used the timeout, it was like 28-12 and I think it got to 30-12, but we played basically even the rest of the way for the last 30 minutes, but we just had to clean things up.”

Hurley conceded that this is the best Arizona squad he has faced in his nine years of the rivalry, and it’s easy to see why. UA has an eight-man rotation with sophomore guard Jaden Bradley — who started 22 games for Alabama last year — along with freshman and consensus top-100 recruit guard KJ Lewis as role players.

These players come off the bench because the starting five is filled with double-digit scorers. All five Wildcat starters scored in double figures, with sophomore guard Kylan Boswell leading the charge, scoring 17 points. The Wildcats received another big performance from redshirt senior center Oumar Ballo with 14 points and 13 rebounds, notching a double-double in each of his last eight games.

ASU redshirt junior Adam Miller also knows that Arizona is a very good squad, but he understands the importance of controlling the controllable factors and how he was not scared when he entered the arena.

“Very important,” Miller said. “But I didn’t go into the game thinking they were 2024 Western Conference All-Stars. At the end of the day, they’re college players just like us. They get in the gym. They work out like we work out. They do the same things we do. They want it just as bad as we want it. So at the end of the day, you line up on the line, you’ve got to play and you know you’re not going to win everything. But like I said, that goes back to how you lose. When you get on that line, you got to put forth the effort. You got to show up every time.”

The Sun Devils played well in a losing effort. ASU had four double-digit scorers with Miller and junior guard Frankie Collins leading the team with 16 and 15 points, respectively. Collins in particular did not shoot well from the field as he only made 4 of 18 shots, but all four field goals were threes, encouraging for a point guard that entered the game shooting 29.6% from three.

Simply put, the final scoreboard and stat sheet are ugly for ASU as it was outshot in almost every shooting statistic. However, the fact that UA only outscored ASU by four points in the second half despite it ending the game on a 15-7 run in the final five minutes is somewhat encouraging for the Devils.

The fast start for the Wildcats was too much to overcome. There were times when ASU would have surrendered after an early deficit, but not Wednesday. Even though it did not result in a win, Miller notices one specific aspect when looking at how the team has improved.

“Resilience,” Miller said. “There have been a lot of times this year we just folded. We didn’t necessarily do that as often tonight. Pretty sure you’ve seen the games we folded. When you fight, you’re not gonna win everything. Me personally, it’s the way you lose. That’s the way you go about life and take your L’s. A couple shots here and there could have went in and a better start early on, but the effort was there for the most part, so you can’t beat yourself up too much.”

ASU is a team that feels like it can make a run in the Pac-12 Tournament, which is what it needs to make the Big Dance. Almost completing a comeback victory against Washington and beating a ranked Washington State team has given this team confidence in the stretch run of the regular season.

It’s always difficult to lose to a rival, but Hurley puts it into perspective of how it can always be a lot worse.

“Although we’re not having a fantastic season, there are teams that are frickin brutal right?” Hurley said. “They just stink, and they’ve given up and they don’t compete. And that’s not what your team is doing. I know we’re all disappointed. We just lost to Arizona — no more than me — but we might need a dose of reality and just realize that Arizona is really good. We didn’t play anywhere near to an A+ game, which was totally necessary. There’s a lot of freaking bad teams in college basketball. Our players have competed through a lot of adversity this year and they haven’t quit. So I’m happy with my team.”