Arizona State basketball reached a historic low Wednesday night, scoring 29 points in a 22-point loss to Washington State. The 51-29 defeat represented a program low in points for Arizona State since the regular-season finale of the 1946 season when the school still was called Arizona State College. In a game in which the Sun Devils had 15 turnovers and 12 made baskets as a group, ASU produced the third-fewest points in a Pac-12 game in the last 40 years.
“I’m just stunned by how bad the game was,” said head coach Bobby Hurley after the loss dropped ASU to 2-6 (0-1 Pac-12), the program’s worst start since the 1969-70 season. “In the first half, they were really struggling to score, and we were trying on defense. It was not like we weren’t competing. We were making them miss, and that usually gives you some confidence to go the other way.”
Washington State (6-1, 1-0)began the game with a hot shooting performance, making four of its first five shots to open up a 10-0 lead. From there, an 11:24 drought of ineptitude offense for the Cougars allowed the Sun Devils to hang around. The Cougars’ scoring drought was a product of frequently contested 3-pointers and WSU’s inability to score over ASU’s interior length. Because of the defensive effort, the Sun Devils only trailed 18-10 at the break.
“We score 10 points,” Hurley said of the first-half performance, “and we’re still down eight. Like, wow. We can play that bad and still be down eight? That had to be encouraging for the second half, but we were not able to be much better in the second half.
“As bad as we were, we still could’ve had the lead or been tied if we could’ve hit a few wide-open layups or free throws or an open 3. The most elementary, basic things that you need to do.”
Instead of fighting back, the Sun Devils opened the second half by allowing the Cougars to go on an 8-2 run. On the rare occasions in the final 20 minutes when a Sun Devil field goal attempt would go through the hoop, Arizona State fans wooed sarcastically. On misses, the Sun Devil faithful littered Desert Financial Arena with boos, voicing their displeasure with great frequency.
“I don’t have any complaints. I would not feel good after I had to sit through that and watch it,” said Hurley, after telling reporters that he himself would need to re-watch the game to understand the scope of his team’s problems. When a pump-fake and uncontested dunk from freshman forward Mouhamed Gueye gave WSU a 28-12 lead in the opening minutes of the second half, Hurley held the timeout signal high over his head as the booing floodgates opened up. “They buy tickets, and they have the right to come in here and do that. It was the type of performance that years ago if I was as gung-ho about ‘why aren’t people coming out to watch Arizona State basketball?’ -- well, you don’t hear me complaining about that.
“They deserved to boo me. They deserved to boo whoever they feel deserves the criticism for this. I have no issue with it.”
Bewildered by what he saw throughout the game – as ASU made missing layups, free throws, and open 3s look routine – Hurley displayed a range of emotions and a look of astonishment postgame. The seventh-year Sun Devil head coach called the offensive effort disappointing at one point. At another, he labeled it “epically bad” while later classifying it as dreadful. All of Hurley’s descriptions were perfectly apt for ASU’s lowest-scoring performance in the shot clock era.
“It just felt like a circus out there,” said Hurley after the Sun Devils produced 15 turnovers and 12 made shots in the conference-opening loss. “It just felt like we were doing bizarre things even as the game started going. I’m sure confidence and self-doubt start to come into play for each guy that’s doing something negative. It continues to demoralize the whole group.”
ASU’s offensive problems have persisted all year, according to graduate student guard Marreon Jackson, who told reporters that the vision for this ASU team has yet to come to fruition.
“It’s pretty self-explanatory. We haven’t been hitting shots,” said Jackson after he shot 1 of 10 and 0 of 5 from beyond the arc. “I can’t count a game where guys who are supposed to hit shots have all been hitting shots, at least consistently. There’s a lot going on right now, but we can’t keep dwelling.”
During the seven seasons Hurley has coached the Sun Devils; offensive proficiency has seldom been a problem. From 2017-19, Hurley’s teams finished top-60 in points per game each year. Through eight games, the 68.9 points per game rank 245th in the nation.
“This was as ineffective an offensive performance as I’ve been a part of maybe ever, as a player and a coach,” said Hurley following the 21.1 percent shooting night for the Sun Devils. Sophomore guard DJ Horne led Arizona State with 12 points on 5 of 13 shooting. Without Horne’s efforts, the Sun Devils were 7 of 44 from the floor, good for 15.9 percent. “We’ve got to figure out how to do better.”
A rough stretch for the Sun Devils gets no easier in the upcoming days or weeks. Three of ASU’s next four games are against teams in the top-65 of KenPom, and Arizona State heads to Eugene Sunday to take on Oregon. The other contest is an intercity rivalry game with GCU.
“I feel like we’re dwelling on our records and our losses right now,” said Jackson. “We knew it was going to be tough coming in. We’ve hit some adversity right now, and we’re going to respond -- hopefully, we respond how we’re expected to respond.”
