It was nitty, gritty and anything but pretty, but the ASU men’s basketball team got the job done.

Despite a terrible shooting night, the No. 17 Sun Devils (16-3, 5-2 Pac-10) beat UA 53-47 in a tightly contested battle at the McKale Center in Tucson.

“We know — no matter anybody’s record — in this series between us and U of A, it’s going to be a war,” junior guard Derek Glasser said. “At our house or their house. They brought it tonight, man.”

For UA it was the same old story, as a foul in the closing seconds ultimately led to its demise.

Facing a 47-45 deficit with 17 seconds left, the Wildcats (11-8, 2-5) took the ball with a chance to tie the game.

Five seconds later, it was down by six, with no shot at victory. And ASU didn’t even need to make a field goal.

That’s because UA forward Jordan Hill picked up a controversial foul in a game that was called tightly throughout, evoking rage from the UA bench.

After Hill was whistled for a hard screen near the top of the key, the refs called a technical on UA associate head coach Mike Dunlap, sending ASU to the line for four crucial free throws.

Glasser and sophomore guard James Harden combined to knock down all four of them, putting the game out of reach at 51-45.

“I don’t think it was a foul,” Hill said. “But the refs called it, and you have to do what they say. I just went out there and tried to finish strong. I played my heart out.”

Not only did Glasser sink a couple of key free throws, he hit a couple of clutch 3-pointers as well.

The second came with 1:39 left and broke a 40-40 tie. ASU coach Herb Sendek called it the biggest shot of the game.

“We needed someone to step up,” Sendek said. “We were ice, ice, ice cold tonight.”

ASU made 16-of-56 field goals (28.6 percent), in what was its worst shooting performance in more than a decade. Still, ASU pulled off the victory and became the first team to win at Stanford, at UCLA and in Tucson in the same season since 1980-81. And it only took them 19 days to do it.

The first half was ugly. There’s no other way to put it.

The Sun Devils shot just 8-of-35 from the field (22.9 percent) and 2-of-17 from behind the arc in the first period. There were plenty of ticky-tack fouls and sloppy possessions to go around.

For them to be trailing 21-18 at the break illustrated just how poor of a half UA played as well. Junior forward Jordan Hill, the Wildcats premier player, had a tough time finishing around the basket and finished the half with zero points on five field-goal attempts.

He stepped it up the second half, though, and finished with 16 points and 15 rebounds.

As a team, UA went 6-of-21 from the floor in the first half including 1-of-9 from 3-point range.

The Wildcats finished 14-of-47 and just 2-of-16 from behind the arc.

Reach the reporter at alex.espinoza@asu.edu