When ASU men's basketball toppled then No. 13 Texas Tech on Feb. 17 behind a renewed defensive effort, cracking the door open for a potential bye in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, the hope for a turnaround appeared to glimmer just a bit brighter.
"That's the beauty of this league, and it's a gift and a curse because it could just drive you into the ground," head coach Bobby Hurley said after the 72-67 victory. "But if you could get some momentum and we kind of dug ourselves out of the ashes a little bit, we're climbing the standings at the moment, and there are hard games in front of us ... so there's all opportunities the rest of the way."
The Sun Devils had five games left after their biggest win of the year, with meetings against TCU, Utah and Baylor, all teams with records at or below .500 in the Big 12, and closing out the year against No. 14 Kansas in their home finale and No. 4 Iowa State on the road to close out the regular season.
Those final two games in particular were, as Hurley put it, "opportunities" for ASU to scratch their way into postseason contention, especially with a strength of schedule ranked top-15 by KenPom, but showdowns against opponents who’ve had similar seasons to the Sun Devils were first and foremost.
"We went down a nasty road, losing a lot of games we (weren't) supposed to," senior guard Moe Odum said. "But like I told them before, we win this game, we got a chance to get back in the conversation … so just got to stack these wins, cherish this one, but don't get too high, don't get too low, and we just got to take care of business the rest of the way."
Yet just days later, ASU blew an early 10-point lead against Baylor, who entered that matchup 3-10 in conference play and currently sit at 14th in the Big 12 rankings, two spots behind ASU.
The Sun Devils shot 42% from the field in the second half after creating a 40-32 halftime advantage, but it was their inability to execute in the clutch that turned the tide in an eventual 73-68 loss. After taking a 59-55 lead with nearly seven minutes remaining, ASU was outscored 18-9, making just one of its final nine attempts and allowing the Bears to make nine of its last 11 from the field.
The loss wasn't just a one-off, but a pattern that the Sun Devils have established in crunch time. ASU has the fifth-worst net rating among Big 12 teams in clutch time, defined as the final five minutes of games within five points, and struggles on both sides of the court.
Its 41.6% field goal percentage in those moments ranks second-worst amongst the Big 12, and its defensive rating of 124.7 is fourth-worst. The Sun Devils turned the ball over numerous times against Texas Tech in the final few minutes when pressured full-court, nearly costing them the game.
"We would have had to do almost everything wrong, possibly to lose or to see the game go to overtime," Hurley said after the Texas Tech win. "We tried at times, we committed some bad fouls, and we had timeouts and didn't take them, and we threw the ball away a couple times. So we got to do a better job of trying to clean that up in late-game situations."
Toward the end of the game, early-season losses within 10 points for the Sun Devils were brought up to fuel a strong finish.
"We talked in one of the huddles at the end of the game, three minutes left or five minutes left, we said, 'Remember UCF? Remember Colorado at home?'" redshirt sophomore forward Santiago Trouet said. "We're not losing this game."
Even in a win, however, those errors can build habits that can’t occur when the margin is tight and the season’s up-and-down nature has been a microcosm of Hurley’s tenure at ASU. The highs of 14 ranked wins in Hurley’s 11 years in Tempe and 49 wins since the 2019-20 season in games within six points, tied for third in the nation across that span, are starkly contrasted with the team’s overall results under him.
With the season nearing its end, ASU’s presence in the NCAA tournament isn't the only thing at stake with Hurley seemingly on the hot seat.
Edited by Niall Rosenberg, Henry Smardo and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporter at pvallur2@asu.edu and follow @PrathamValluri on X.
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Pratham Valluri is a sports reporter at The State Press. He is a junior majoring in sports journalism with business and data analytics minors. He’s in his 5th semester with The State Press working previously as an opinion writer.
