(Photo Credit: Spencer Barnes/WCSN)
The course of a college basketball season is long and can consist of peaks and valleys, but for Arizona State men’s basketball (11-11, 5-6 Pac-12) the highs have felt like climbing a mountain top and the lows have sunken them deep into disarray.
The Sun Devils have fallen to 5-6 in Pac-12 play, a shocking turn of events from their 4-0 start to the conference in early January.
The roller coaster of a season for ASU has been highlighted by winning and losing streaks. Eight of the team’s 11 wins this year can be attributed directly to two separate four-game winning streaks, performing with an untouchable swagger.
However, their play can get as cold as it has been hot, after Saturday afternoon’s loss to California, they’ve lost five of their last six games dating back to Jan. 11 against Washington.
“It not in my makeup to quit,” head coach Bobby Hurley said after losing to California. “That’s not what I’ve done my whole life, so if that what [ASU men’s basketball players] are looking for from their leader, they’re not going to get that.”
This rough patch is the second notable one this year, as the Sun Devils went on a three-game losing stretch before conference play began. After the third loss in a row, which came against Northwestern, Hurley went on to talk about a lack of commitment within the team, and many of those same problems have begun to arise once again, as he claimed it’s becoming a pattern.
“It has come full circle,” Hurley said “The same things that haunted us in some of our non-conference games are just circular. From how we were from a team dynamic standpoint. Then we made some adjustments and played the right way for several games, and now we’ve come back to the same trust, commitment, and unity breakdown.”
So what has led ASU back to the root of its problems? Offensively, the scoring output has not been at the bar it was previously set. Over the four-win start to Pac-12 play, ASU scored at least 70 points in all four games, surpassing 75 in three of them. Yet in the last seven games — where its record is 1-6 — the 70-point mark has only been hit twice, and one of those two games ended in a victory over USC.
This 70-point mark was shown to be just as crucial during the non-conference schedule when the Sun Devils had their first four-game winning stretch, as they scored 72 points or more in all four games and aeraged 77 per contest. The impressive scoring output continued in their 89-84 loss to San Diego, scoring under 60 points in the two games, including a season-low 46 against Northwestern.
The reasons why ASU is struggling to score as of late can vary, Sometimes it’s poor outside shooting like when it shot 3-for-26 from three against Oregon State, and in other games, it’s rebounding, like when the Sun Devils were out-rebounded by double digits against both Stanford and UCLA. For graduate forward Alonzo Gaffney, a lot of the problems boil down to effort and shot-making.
“It felt like to me we didn’t have the energy,” Gaffney said. “We just got to be better.”
“Who knows?” Gaffney said when asked about why the energy was lacking Saturday. “We just probably have to get more sleep. It was an early game but credit to the other team.”
Credit to the other team is something that’s been due throughout the rough patch, as opponents have made adjustments to limit ASU’s top offensive threats, starting with junior guard Frankie Collins.
Over the last seven Pac-12 games, Collins has scored 13.2 points per game, shooting just 38% from the field and just 24.4% from beyond the arch. Conversely, he was averaging 17 points shooting 63% from the floor and 40% from three over the first four games of conference play.
The drastic change was evident when looking at ASU’s two games against Cal. Collins scored 25 points in the first game on New Year’s Eve, including the game-winning layup late in the second half, compared to just 13 points on 6-of-16 shooting on Saturday.
A big reason for Collins’s struggle was due to the the Golden Bears’ game plan, which was working to get the ball out of his hands by “icing” — forcing the ball handler toward the sideline or baseline away from the basket in an attempt to block driving lanes — any pick-n-roll action he is involved in.
“Their coach did a good job trying to keep Frankie from getting downhill and scoring the ball,” Gaffney said.
While teams have done a good job adjusting to Collins’s offense, the struggles do not just fall on him. In the eyes of Hurley, his team is not playing together, calling his squad disconnected multiple times after Saturday’s loss.
“We were just out there playing, there was no urgency,” Hurley said. “It was just like,’Hey, there’s another game, let’s go hoop.’”
Hurley feels as though the losing has caused the locker room to shift in a way that is not conducive to winning, a very similar testament to how he felt earlier in the season during his team’s first losing stretch.
“Anytime you’re going through a bad stretch like we are right now, that’s when fingers start coming out and they start pointing,” Hurley said. “No one wants to take accountability for everything. At this point, we’re just focusing on trying to see who’s committed on Monday.”
The team’s lack of commitment towards each other can be displayed in the assist totals, in six of the team’s last seven games excluding USC, the Sun Devils have created fewer assists than their opponents, and in all but one game, fewer-than half their field goals came off of assist.
Hurley claims to be uber-committed to the team’s comradery, against the Golden Bears graduate guard Jose Perez did not play in the second half. Perez is the only ASU player who had scored in double figures in the team’s previous six straight games and considering the team’s desperate need for offense that decision was a surprising one.
When asked why Perez failed to make a second-half cameo, Hurley said,“It was a coach’s decision. That’s all I’m going to say.”
ASU has reached another low point in its season, a point similar to the one it faced at the end of December, the difference being its form was eventually turned around, and the course was corrected. At this point in the season, it is unsure whether Hurley’s team will find it within themselves to reset.
“The emphasis in practice this week is going to be evaluating,” Hurley said “What needs to be done if there are changes that need to be made.”
