It's become obvious that the situation surrounding the ASU men's basketball program is going to get worse before it gets better. Just mentioning the word speculation is enough to cause uneasiness among players and coaches alike.
Saturday's loss at UA marked a new low in a season full of redefinitions about exactly where rock bottom is. But instead of kicking players and coaches when they're already down, let's blame it on the fans, or complete lack thereof.
Midway through the first half, as the UA pep band blasted out a fairly cheesy rendition of the Doobie Brothers' "Jesus Is Just Alright," it finally hit me: Where's all the maroon and gold?
In part one of the Dual in the Desert held in Tempe, red-and-blue clad fans made up a full third of the non-sellout crowd at Wells Fargo Arena. And chants of "U-of-A" at times challenged those Sun Devil fans to the point of submission.
After surveying the fully packed rows Saturday at the McKale Center, I found what I was looking for, up near the rafters -- one gold T-shirt with "Devils" written on it. He looked lonely, a little nervous and most definitely outnumbered.
Granted, getting a ticket to a UA men's basketball home game for a Sun Devil fan is infinitely harder than it is for Wildcat faithful to file into Wells Fargo Arena. After all, in Tucson, college basketball is the main order, not a side dish.
Hours before tip-off, painted fans nearly filled the student section. One fan in particular claimed that his journey for a coveted front-row seat began at 3 a.m.
Any away game is a hostile environment for a college basketball team. But as the Wildcat student section began trying to work its way into the heads of ASU basketball players during warm-ups, it became clear that this was not ordinary heckling.
ASU's new-found, Cal-beating confidence went missing, as the nervous Sun Devils tied a season high in turnovers.
It's impossible to know whether ASU's inability to get the UA monkey off its back is psychological. But after watching what 14,611 do what they do to a struggling Sun Devil team, it's probably not too far off the mark.
Or maybe the one guy in gold wasn't loud enough.
Reach the reporter at michael.fowler@asu.edu.
