In the leadup to Arizona State’s first Pac-12 home game of this season, head coach Bobby Hurley hinted at lineup changes he’d been hoping to make. Hurley told local reporters, he wanted to change some things up ahead of the Sun Devils’ matchup with UCLA.
A night later, with senior guard Remy Martin in California attending his grandfather’s funeral, sophomore forward Jalen Graham out with mono, and Jaelen House and Taeshon Cherry also not in attendance, Hurley’s options lineup-wise were limited.
Three weeks later, the Sun Devils return home following a Monday night blowout in Tucson, on the heels of a six-game losing streak, to take on the California Golden Bears – the lone Pac-12 squad the Sun Devils hold a victory over this season. With a 1-5 record in conference play – and 4-8 overall – Hurley told reporters Wednesday that he’s hoping to implement a few lineup tweaks ahead of Thursday’s 9 p.m. tipoff.
“They were the bright spots in the game just how they competed,” said Hurley of Jaelen House and Jalen Graham’s performances in Monday night’s 80-67 loss to the Wildcats. Both of the Sun Devil sophomores missed the aforementioned UCLA game, limiting Hurley’s options for lineup flexibility three weeks ago. “Jalen Graham the past two games since coming back has been a positive for us. He just looks like the guy I was watching in preseason workouts.”
Trailing by 22 at the halftime break Monday night, the Sun Devils implemented a full court press, which sped up the second-half pace and helped energize a too-little, too-late ASU comeback. House’s energy in the press stood out to Hurley and could earn the local Shadow Mountain product more playing time in the near future.
“Jaelen House always defends. He’s pesty. On defense, he got a charge, hit a couple of shots. He made a couple of nice passes,” said Hurley. “He’s certainly helped himself and put himself in a position to earn some more playing time.”
Asked about adding Graham back to the starting lineup as he works his way back into shape following his mono absence, Hurley gave a non-committal response.
“I’m not sure, I’m still considering a lot of things at the moment,” Hurley told reporters. “We’ll see tomorrow.”
Hurley is still looking for answers for an Arizona State team which its lone conference win came in early December, during a 70-62 road trip to Berkeley, in which senior guard Alonzo Verge was unavailable. The Sun Devils’ last win was a one-point victory in a road trip to Grand Canyon, where Martin’s late-game heroics in a 31-point performance gave the Sun Devils a victory.
Since then, three postponements and five losses have the Sun Devils searching for answers. Without things going to plan for a Sun Devil team that entered this year with high expectations, Hurley said he isn’t worried about players shifting their focus to personal goals and professional aspirations.
“We’ve got a lot of winners,” Hurley said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that have won a lot of games here over the last three years. It’s a tough stretch to go through and very painful for them, and we’ll try to find a way to snap ourselves out of it.”
The disjointed nature of the schedule and practice rhythm for Hurley’s team have led to disjointed results. In turn, Hurley said the last few weeks have featured a lot of introspection on his end to figure out what’s wrong with the Sun Devils.
“It’s just reflection and self-evaluation. Things I need to do to fix the problem,” Hurley said of how he’s handling ASU’s six-game losing streak. “I try to solve problems. I’ve been with two programs, and I’ve been through the good and the bad. I’ve been on an NBA team that lost 12 straight games. It was one of the most miserable things I’ve gone through in basketball.
“There’s no guarantees. No one’s going to give you anything. You’ve gotta go out and make it happen to change what’s going on.”
As the Sun Devils prepare for a weekend set with California and Stanford, Hurley is hoping his squad will find a solution to its slow starts and poorly-executed finishes to games.
“We’re going to experiment with some things,” Hurley explained. “We have not played well, and we’ve dug a hole for ourselves in the first half of games. We have issues with the first half of the game and then late in the game.
“We can only build on what we did today. Today I saw some urgency; I saw us working on areas of need and guys trying to address those problems.”
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On November 18th, the NCAA extended its suspension of all in-person recruiting for Division 1 sports through April 15, 2021. With the prolonged period of restrictions, Hurley spoke on the challenges Arizona State is facing recruiting high schoolers without the ability to evaluate in person this year.
“It’s been challenging,” Hurley said. “Again, everyone has to deal with the same situation in not being able to get out into gyms and evaluate, and that’s been the case since the spring. We’re just trying to do the best we can. We have a number of guys signed for the next class, and we’re working with future classes and doing the best we can communicating with athletes without the ability to go out under natural circumstances and watch them play.”
