To his left, the Arizona State student section -- which was about 50 percent occupied -- started chanting Byron Smith’s name, mocking the Prairie View A&M coach for losing his cool and picking up a technical.

With his gray suit jacket off, Smith’s anger and outburst turned away from the referees and toward the gold-T-shirt-wearing college kids. He emphatically waved his arms and jawed at them, probably yelling something like, “Let’s go,” or “Bring it.”

For the rest of the night he kept yelling -- not at the students but seemingly everyone else. And when opposing coaches from conferences like the SWAC (That’s the Southwestern Athletic Conference for those unaware) are that empathic for most of the game, it’s not usually a good sign for the higher-major school.

On Wednesday, Smith kept screaming and subbing because his Panthers’ largely kept within three or four possessions of the Sun Devils all night.

In the end, ASU (7-2) pulled out with an 88-79 win over Prairie View A&M (3-6). It’s the Sun Devils seventh win, a respectable mark with Anthony Edwards and Georgia on the horizon. But against the Panthers, as has been the case in its last three games, Arizona State didn’t seem to answer any of its glaring questions.

In fact, Wednesday may have been the Devils’ worst game of the season. A matchup against KenPom’s 265th-ranked team turned into a slop fest.

There were 58 combined fouls, Arizona State accounted for 25 of those -- which, in the end, resulted in a total of 84 free throws. ASU scored just 22 points off 20 PVAM turnovers. And the Sun Devils shooting concerns only magnified, hitting just 5 of 17 from deep.

As was the case following a 12-point win over Louisiana on Saturday, coach Bobby Hurley was beyond agitated in his postgame press conference. It’s now eight games into the season and his team has yet to make major strides as a unit.

“I’ve been telling the guys, as much as I’ve talked about offense, that we better be prepared to play a 40-minute game,” Hurley said, just after providing what was possibly a subtle jab at the officiating.

“Yeah, I know it’s late. It’s almost 11 o’clock. There were so many free throws taken … I don’t want to keep everyone here until the next day, we’re getting close to that point.”

Beyond the fouls and beyond the abysmal shooting numbers, the Sun Devils are far from their potential. Would connecting on open shots help alleviate that? Sure. But, at the moment, there are so many parts and pieces undefined.

Forwards Taeshon Cherry and Kimani Lawrence, who combined for seven points on Wednesday, have both struggled mightily to get going. Romello White has been good, but teams are starting to trap him more and deny passes inside to him. Jaelen House has been a menace on defense but is only shooting 30 percent on the season.

Even guard Alonzo Verge, who seemed to break out of his slump with a career-high 20-point performance against the Panthers, has made some questionable decisions. With a little over a minute left and ASU up seven, Verge drove to the hoop and drew a foul. The only problem was there was he left more than 20 seconds on the shot clock.

Now, in the grand scheme of the game, the play didn’t matter. But it seemed to be indicative of a Sun Devil team not playing disciplined while also trying to do too much.

“These are self-inflicted things that we can’t do,” Hurley said. “Once you have an opponent down, you can’t give them hope.”

Added White: “The last couple of games we had a big lead on opponents and we let them come back. I’ve really been preaching to them, ‘Once we get a good lead, we have to pick it up and go even harder.”

Should the Sun Devils’ saving grace come, what would it look like? Would it simply be hitting shots? Would it be players slowly working into roles, then excelling in those roles? Would it be having such a solid defense that shooting doesn’t matter?

ASU has a lot of talent. Perhaps that’s what makes Hurley so frustrated. In the past, there were often clear reasons that Sun Devils struggled (Weren’t big enough, weren’t good enough on defense, etc.).

The success of this group seems to be predicated on getting its parts to excel collectively. When, and if, that comes to fruition seems like it will determine how far ASU can go this season.

The only concern is the timetable. ASU’s next three games are against Georgia, St. Mary’s and Creighton -- all Top-70 teams in the KenPom rankings. The Devils’ time to work out the kinks was supposed to be against Louisiana and Prairie View A&M.

Now, Hurley and Co. will have to do it on the fly.