Following an emotional Senior Night ceremony, the ASU men's basketball team had to put it behind. In a microcosm of its season, ASU had opportunities but let them slip through their fingertips in the end.
The Sun Devils (15-16, 5-13 Pac-12) fell to the California Golden Bears 68-65 Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena, capping coach Bobby Hurley's first regular season at the helm of the Sun Devils.
The emotions of honoring the senior class oftentimes runs over into the game, giving the home squad an early emotional lift, but Cal was quickly able to cease Sun Devil momentum to gain an early advantage.
With two NBA general managers in the house to scout, Cal freshmen Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb could not deliver on their draft stock in the first half, combining for just 10 points and looking out of sorts.
The Bears were instead carried by junior guard Jordan Mathews, who poured in 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting, causing trouble for ASU's defense, no matter how they decided to play.
Behind Mathews' scoring, Cal led by as many as eight points in the first half, but ASU locked down defensively and was able to storm back.
The Sun Devils ended the first half on a 19-6 run which was punctuated by a thunderous dunk by junior forward Savon Goodman to grab a 33-28 halftime lead.
ASU opened the second stanza with a quick 5-0 burst to up its lead to 10 points and make Wells Fargo Arena believe its team was on its way to a third top-25 win of the season.
Then, Tyrone Wallace happened.
The senior guard began to will Cal back into the game bit by bit, whittling down the deficit and then giving the Bears their first lead of the game at 55-52 with 4:27 left.
Cal's lead was up to three with 1:03 left in the game, ASU tried to trap Brown at the top of the key, but senior forward Eric Jacobsen was whistled for a blocking foul, much to the chagrin of those on the ASU bench, especially Hurley.
Despite disagreeing with the call, Jacobsen was leveled in his assessment of the foul.
"It was a tough call in the moment of the game," Jacobsen said. "I tried to get out and hedge and I don't know... The ref was put in a tough position and made the call the way he did."
Later, Hurley was fired up again by what he believed should have been called traveling on a junior guard, which would have given ASU the ball down four with 26 seconds left. Instead, junior guard Jabari Bird made one of two free throws to essentially ice the game.
A visibly frustrated Hurley tried to be as diplomatic as Jacobsen in his evaluation of the officiating late in the game, but he made his feelings known in his answer.
"Usually I would say that I have to go review it and look at it again, but I did look at it again on the monitor up on the top there," Hurley said. "I know what happened and that's all I'm going to say about it. I know what happened in that play."
In spite of the loss, there were bright spots for ASU, including 20 points for Jacobsen, which matched a career-high, not that it matters much to him in light of the final score.
"It doesn't mean a lot," Jacobsen said. "We still lost the game. For me, it's not about points or stats or anything like that."
Despite the disappointment of not winning his last game in Tempe, Jacobsen knows his season isn't done yet and that the Sun Devils must refocus for their hopefully long trip to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Tournament.
"We gave a winning effort tonight," Hurley said. "We played a game that could have got us a win against a really good team and it didn't go our way. So we'll pick the pieces up and get to work tomorrow."
Reach the reporter at mtonis@asu.edu or follow @Tonis_The_Tiger on Twitter.
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