In a rematch of a New Year’s Eve contest with the Golden Bears, ASU seemed to be in hibernation today in another abysmal offensive performance. The Sun Devils lost 66-81 and fell to 11-11 (5-6 Pac 12), this shortcoming marks a loss in six of the last seven games for ASU.
Today appeared to be a hangover from the 71-62 Stanford loss, which featured plenty of offensive struggles of its own where the Sun Devils shot 38.3% from the field and 25% from beyond the arc. Today was more of the same as ASU still shot 38.3% from the field and allowed Cal to shoot 50% from both the field and the three-point line.
“We had the same amount of field goals as they did,” head coach Bobby Hurley said, “they just shot a better percentage from the field and from three 50% from three, so we really didn’t do the job we needed to do defensively.”
The Sun Devils got off to a slow start and never recovered. Cal got out to an early 10-2 lead, as Arizona State had no answer to their opponent on either side of the floor. There was a visible disconnection between the ASU players, and an apparent lack of energy set the tone for the rest of the game as Cal never took their foot off the gas pedal.
The Sun Devil offense was unable to overcome senior guard Jose Perez’s miserable offensive night. Perez had scored a lone point in 13 minutes of play in the first half, a far cry from his 12.9 points average. Subsequently, he was benched in the second half in what Hurley termed a “coach’s decision.”
“We weren’t connected as a team,” Hurley noted, “and the first half who it was, it was, you know, it was five individuals out there playing. I mean, some guys didn’t play well. And, you know, but, you know, you gotta be on the same page, you know, we, you know, we could not get the group to function as a team in the first half.”
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This shortcoming resulted in the Golden Bears having four players in double digits. The compilation of Fardaws Aimaq’s 20-point, 14-rebound double-double and Jaylon Tyson’s 17-point, 10-rebound double-double set the tone for the visitors. Inevitably feeding off the success was Jalen Cone, who had 19 points of his own.
“We talked about their, their big three (Airmaq, Tyson, Cone),” Hurley remarked. “They got three guys that really statistically have had a great season all, you know, we wanted to try and neutralize at least one of those three guys and try and maybe, you know, just chop a couple of points off their season averages, you know, being we’re on our home floor. But that didn’t happen.”
The Sun Devils tried to make a run of their own in the second half, coming out with a new sense of purpose. ASU improved their field goal percentage by seven percent between and came as close as a nine-point deficit with over 15 minutes left in the game. Nevertheless, Cal responded in short order and expanding their lead to as many as 21 points.
“They had a response when we like, we got it to, I think it was six or eight. And then they had the four-point play,” Hurley said. “At 51-40, that’s a situation where we maybe able to score and set up our press again, and thecrowd was getting back in it, but we couldn’t get it to single digits together.”
Following Thursday night’s loss, Hurley mentioned that going to the bench more often is the approach he will take as the offense has needed a spark. The bench on Thursday combined for 33 minutes, which paled in comparison to this afternoon’s 58 minutes. One of the only measures of consistency for the hosts was sophomore center Shawn Phillips Jr., who is continuing to emerge as a contributor, posting 13 points and seven rebounds in 20 minutes.
“Shawn is only scratching the surface on what he’s going to be if he stays the course,” Hurley described, “and keeps focusing on getting better just with his youthfulness. He’s got some high-end ability, and his ceiling is super high.”
Although the center shed some light during what felt like another dark rock-bottom moment for the team rock-bottom, the immediate future isn’t too promising. Traveling to the Mountain schools may prove to be the toughest road trip of the season. Arizona State only has one Pac-12 win after starting 4-0 in conference play, and now the team finds themselves in a similar situation to where they were following the tail end of non-conference play when they had three straight losses capped by the nineteen-point loss to Northwestern in Phoenix.
“It is really just circular circular, a circular movement,” Hurley said. “All the way back to that game (Northwestern) from, from how we were from a team dynamic standpoint. And then we made some adjustments and played the right way for several games. And now we’ve come all the way back to that same trust, commitment, unity break down and and play in the right way of playing together and play to win.”
It has been the epitome of frustration for Hurley and company over the last two games, as dysconnectivity and lack of offensive firepower have doomed the team. Hurley and the staff tried to put the pieces together before today’s game to get back in the win column but ultimately failed in another much-needed win situation.
“We’ve been working hard as a staff,” Hurley stated. “We met for a long time yesterday with the team and just talked about a lot of things relevant to performance and playing winning basketball. We didn’t do that at all in the first half. We just were out there playing where there was no urgency, no desperation. It was just like, hey, this another game…”
Apathy may have kicked in with some segments of the fan base, but Hurley vows to keep on fighting in the efforts to halt the losing streak.
“It’s not in my makeup to quit,” Hurley said. That’s not what I’ve done my whole life. So, if that’s what they’re looking for from their leader, then they’re not going to get that we’re just going to look at each individual game and see, see how we could try and turn us around.”
