In-and-out.
Not the burger joint, but Christian Polk's three-point attempt to win ASU's first conference game Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena.
The 48-47 loss to the No. 18 Washington State Cougars, gave the Sun Devils (6-16, 0-11 Pac-10) a school record 12th consecutive loss.
With nearly a dozen conference losses, all in a number of different ways, this one may hurt the most.
"Obviously, it's a painful loss," ASU coach Herb Sendek said. "It does no good to pretend that it doesn't hurt. It does."
The heartbreak began when Washington State stepped out of bounds on an inbound pass with little over a second left.
The turnover gave the Sun Devils possession under their own basket with a shot to break their 11-game skid.
ASU sophomore Jeff Pendergraph, who led all scorers with 18, flashed to the ball, drawing multiple defenders, while Polk flashed to the corner for the open shot.
"That's what we wanted," Pendergraph said of Polk's shot. "He's confident enough and he can hit them, so let's get him the ball."
The got him the ball and the open look, but failed to get the win. Instead, it was WSU's night (19-4, 8-3 Pac-10), despite only scoring 12 points in the second half.
"Everyone tends to focus on the last play of the game," Sendek said. "We could go back through the tape and play the would-coulda game for a lot of possessions."
The Sun Devils "coulda" won the game because Pendergraph nearly outscored the Cougars 10-12 in the second half alone.
"To hold a nationally ranked to team to those kind of numbers, it can't simply be a function of chalk dust," Sendek said. "It still comes down to playing really hard."
ASU played hard down the stretch greatly thanks to the largest student section of the season, but failed to capture the crowd's attention early in the game.
The Cougars got out to a 36-24 lead after the first 20 minutes because of strong outside shooting from sophomore Daven Harmeling, who scored 12 of his 16 points in the first half.
WSU shot 63 percent from the field in the first half, and followed that up by shooting 20 percent in the second half.
Besides the consistent production from Pendergraph and Polk, who scored 30 of the Sun Devils' 47 points, it was a struggle to convert the field for the rest of the team.
ASU's other starters, freshmen Jerren Shipp, Derek Glasser and fifth-year senior Allen Morill combined to shoot four of 19 from the field.
The Sun Devils were competitive with one of the conferences best teams because their defense did well to contain the Cougars' leading scorer
Junior point guard Derek Low, came into the game leading the Cougars with 15 points per game, but was held to just 10 points thanks to strong on-ball defense.
"They were pushing us to the edge of the floor," Low said.
While Low didn't produce his normal scoring output, his two free-throws with 15.5 seconds left were the difference in the game.
Picking up their first win won't come easy for the Sun Devils, as their next game comes in "The Pit"- home of the No. 9 Oregon Ducks.
Besides being one of the most intimidating places to play in all of college basketball, Oregon is looking for a season sweep.
When the two teams met on Jan. 11, ASU gave the then 17th ranked Ducks a scare, falling 60-55.
Reach the reporter at: edward.Price@asu.edu.
