(Photo: Alyssa Buruato/WCSN)
TEMPE – With 5:56 left in the second half, junior guard DJ Horne hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game to put Arizona State men’s basketball up 56-50. Desert Financial Arena exploded, and the vibes were high throughout the building, with multiple renowned alumni, including James Harden sitting courtside.
Four minutes and 45 seconds later, Colorado junior forward Tristan da Silva sank a 3 to put the Buffaloes up by four points with a little over a minute left. The same fans who were jubilant five minutes earlier were now leaving in a mass exodus.
ASU struggled to score during that time period, losing 67-59 to Colorado in what felt like a must-win game to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes alive.
“I just think sometimes in basketball you just get beat,” head coach Bobby Hurley said. “I think that was the case. They were just a fraction better than us tonight. We had our chances when we were able to get a little lead there at 56-50 and some other times where we were stuck on that number, and we just could make shots.
For the majority of the game, it appeared as if ASU was the team that was the better team, leading for over 30 game minutes, but two bad stretches to close out both halves set the Sun Devils back.
Coming out of the gates, both teams were hot from deep, each hitting multiple 3s. Horne especially came out of the gates firing, hitting three of his first four 3-pointers.
“They were switching a lot early,” Hurley said. “[Colorad head coach Tod Boyle] was switching [sophomore center Lawson] Lovering on to DJ, and so those were good mismatches for us, and he was able to create some space and get off pretty clean looks.”
Later in the half, ASU continued its uncharacteristically solid shooting night, with senior forward Devan Cambridge hitting a jumper to put the Sun Devils up 32-24 with a minute and 45 seconds remaining in the first half. The following eight points were scored by the Buffaloes resulting in a tied 32-32 halftime score.
“We didn’t finish the half well again,” Hurley said. “That was kind of like Oregon, a little bit, where we had an eight-point advantage 30 to 22 and 32-24. And then they scored the final eight, didn’t finish the half well, and didn’t finish the game well.”
The culprit for both of the end of the half collapse was a familiar one for the Sun Devils, an inability to make shots. Over the course of Colorado’s 17-3 run to close out the game, ASU shot one for 10 from the field, the only bucket being another DJ Horne 3.
In the first half, the Sun Devils shot a respectable 40.6% from the field and 35.7% from behind the arc. In the second half, shooting woes were prominent, as ASU’s second-half field goal percentage was 33.3%, with its 3-point percentage being a putrid 20% on 15 shots. With shots not falling, ASU continued to take them, causing the criticism of their shot selection to continue.
“It’s tough,” senior forward Warren Washington said about the team’s shot selection. “I feel like when we’re making shots, we could beat anybody in the country. Just because we have one of the best defenses in the country. But when we’re not making shots, it feels like we could lose to anybody in the country. So it’s rough.”
The Sun Devils’ loss to Colorado is damaging to their tournament hopes. Coming into this weekend, it was believed that ASU was going to have to sweep both its games against Colorado and Utah in order to have a shot at making the Tournament, especially with a tough final stretch, which consists of three road games against No. 8 Arizona, No. 4 UCLA, and USC.
Following Thursday night’s loss, ASU has already fallen down to No. 72 in the Kenpom rankings. What once was a very promising season, a recent 3-6 stretch has put the Sun Devils in a position of desperation.
Despite the overwhelming odds against them, the Sun Devils are still just taking it one game at a time, ignoring any thoughts about the tournament.
“I can’t think about that right now,” Washington said. “We got to move on to the next one. We got a lot of good games coming down on the road. So I feel like our season, and our hopes are always going to be there.”
