On Tuesday, ASU head coach Bobby Hurley expressed his gratitude for the continued effort of his team, despite not receiving the winning results and successes that the squad had hoped for. His team hadn’t won a conference game since Jan. 17, and that was against last-place Utah in a two-point win which they grabbed by the skin of their teeth.

On Saturday night against No. 3 UCLA (16-4, 8-3 Pac-12), Hurley’s Arizona State Sun Devils (7-13, 3-7) came to play with that same intensity, determined to find a winning result. It only took 40 minutes of regulation and three five-minute overtime periods to break the deadlock, with ASU finally grabbing their much-desired upset victory, knocking off the Bruins 87-84.

An ASU crowd of 9,135, which had been heavily engaged in the contest and naturally stayed until the final buzzer stormed the floor with joy, gleefully obscuring the tan hardwood of Desert Financial Arena with nothing but maroon and gold.

“It’s a great win for everybody,” Hurley said afterward, donning an ASU athletics t-shirt and sweatpants after his typical suit and tie was drenched in the locker room celebration. “It’s good for everyone to enjoy this moment; it was exciting. I got to fist bump a couple of students; they were terrific. The crowd was fantastic throughout the whole game; their energy never dropped.”

“I almost didn’t want it to end. Both teams were good tonight and played a heck of a game. It was fun to be a part of it and coach in it.”

For the first 15 minutes, Arizona State went blow-for-blow with UCLA; trading leads without letting one side escape to double digits. The ASU offense, one of the worst in the Power Five, flowed and distributed the ball well, while intense defense kept the Bruins at bay. Across the final six minutes of the half, the Sun Devils went on an 11-5 run, capped off by a three-pointer from sophomore guard Jay Heath to give the Sun Devils a two-point advantage into the locker room.

First-half intensity and success are nothing new for ASU – it’s holding that lead in the second half, which has haunted the Sun Devils throughout their season. However, ASU scored eight unanswered points to open the second half before any Bruin could tickle the twine. At its largest, Arizona State extended its lead to 11 before the Bruins began to claw back. With three minutes remaining in the contest, UCLA regained the lead. With 35 seconds remaining and down by two, graduate student guard Marreon Jackson headed to the free-throw line, sinking both, tying the game at 62.

Junior UCLA guard Johnny Juzang, UCLA’s hero in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, attempted to put the Sun Devils away in the dying moments of regulation – he came up short. Arizona State grabbed the board and flipped it to the hands of Jackson, who sprinted up the court. Jackson fired a three from the “c” of the Desert Financial Arena logo on the hardwood with 2.4 seconds remaining. It clanged off the iron, and the buzzer rang – to overtime they went.

The next three overtimes were a slugfest of titanic proportions – hard fouls, clutch makes, and back-and-forth drama. Through the first two overtimes, each team had an opportunity to walk away with a game-winner.

Tied at 70, UCLA attempted to inbound from their own end of the floor to the frontcourt, but the pass was long and went out of bounds untouched. With 1.4 seconds remaining, the Sun Devils set up a corner three opportunity for sophomore guard DJ Horne. The Illinois State transfer put up a good shot, but it didn’t find its intended target.

In the dying moments of the second overtime, after a massive posterizing dunk from junior forward Jalen Graham, UCLA junior forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. missed a fading jumper from the right side at the buzzer.

It was the third overtime when ASU finally made its move. Horne and Heath hit three-pointers on back-to-back possessions, stretching the lead to four. Graham followed up with a layup to keep the lead at four after UCLA responded. In the final 10 seconds, the Bruins managed to close the lead to just two points. The Sun Devils inbounded the ball to Jackson to put their top five opponent away.

Jackson transferred to ASU to try and fill the gap left behind by former Arizona State guard Remy Martin, who left to play at Kansas. Through the first half of the season, Jackson underperformed, his abilities seemingly dashed by the step-up in competition from the MAC to the Pac-12. His three-point percentage dipped below 30 percent, injuries bothered him, and he could never seem to grab a foothold in maroon and gold.

That changed on Saturday night. As he put away one of the two free throws in the final moments to propel ASU to the win, Jackson capped off a career performance for his new school, finishing with 24 points, four rebounds, three assists, and three steals.

“This game was definitely the most memorable of my career... beating the number three team in the country; it doesn’t get any better than that,” Jackson said. “It’s definitely a relief.”

Jackson, an experienced player from his four years at Toledo, knows what it takes to be a leader of men on the court. He carried over those talents to Tempe, and while it might have taken a while for ASU’s offense to click, the graduate student now believes in his group, especially after such a balanced night offensively, which saw six ASU players finish in double figures.

“We have foxhole guys, people who you want to go war with,” Jackson said. “Regardless of if you’re sick or not hitting shots, we have guys that you can look to the right or left and see that they’re willing to go to war, no matter what’s going on.”

“The adversity has been well documented, but our team has done a great job of staying the course and trying to get better. No one better exemplifies that than Marreon Jackson,” Hurley said of the guard. “I’m so happy to see him come through and make big plays... he had such high expectations, and no one works harder. It’s great to see him come through in the way he did tonight.”

ASU’s other hero on Saturday night was Graham, who for the past week has been battling a severe stomach illness. On Thursday night against No. 19 USC, Graham was visibly ill on the sideline yet still scored a career-high 19 points while grabbing five rebounds, three assists, and two blocks in 25 minutes.

Graham’s illness carried into Saturday – as Hurley told reporters postgame that he had told Graham to rest and get as much fluid in him as possible in order to feel better and get on the floor against the Bruins. In similar fashion to Thursday’s game, Graham played his heart out despite his status – finishing with a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double across 40 valiant minutes on the floor. Omnipresent in nearly every offensive possession, Graham supplemented his scoring and glass cleaning with six assists, contributing significantly to the team’s uncharacteristic offensive success.

“Jalen taking another big step has really opened the doors for us to do more (with our frontcourt players),” Hurley said. “He just makes us different and unique because of his skillset – his touch, his footwork, and his passing ability – he makes really good passes when teams double him.”

Many fully expected to see Arizona State drop to 6-15 with nine losses in Pac-12 play at the end of ASU’s three-game homestand gauntlet against the L.A. schools and No. 7 Arizona on Monday. Yet, the ultimate perseverance of Hurley’s squad proved to be too much to handle for the Bruins on a trip to State 48, which sees them drop games to both Arizona schools.

A tough matchup remains for ASU on Monday against Arizona, but Saturday night’s win proves that ASU, despite the plethora of challenges it’s faced, has what it takes to compete with the best teams in the Pac-12 on any given day.

“It would have been a tough one if I had to walk in here not coming through with the win,” Hurley told reporters postgame. “The morale in the locker room right now is unbelievable because we are winning games and being very competitive against elite teams. We’ve been going toe-to-toe with them, so to break through and win, it will hopefully build confidence as we keep going.”

“They were very determined; they would not be denied… They had the right mindset, and they knew they were going to do what it took to win.”

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