Arizona State men's basketball faces uphill climb to hold conference position

The regular season is down to the homestretch with two weeks left before all 12 teams will convene March 8-11 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the conference tournament.

The Arizona State Sun Devils sit tied for fourth at 10-7 in Pac-12 play and 19-9 overall. The win total represents a five-game improvement over last season with games still left and ASU's placing seems to indicate that the Sun Devils have exceeded expectations. They were picked seventh in the preseason coaches poll and Lindy's national preseason publication has them pegged ninth. But the fan base seems disillusioned because the team started out 15-3, winning six of the first seven conference games only to falter come mid-January.

ASU did gut out a 67-59 win over Utah Saturday at Desert Financial Arena in what was its best performance in a few weeks.

ASU now faces a difficult final trio of games. They will play at No. 8 Arizona (24-4, 13-4) on Saturday, then wrap up with games against the Los Angeles schools, starting with one at No. 4 UCLA (23-4, 14-2), then one at USC (19-8, 11-5), all three teams which beat ASU when they played them in Tempe.

Home losses to Oregon and Colorado likely mean ASU will have to win the conference tournament to advance to the postseason unless they can win more than one of the tough games coming up.

Some things to watch in the next two weeks:

Finishing fourth would be huge

The top four teams in the regular season get a bye for the first round of the conference tournament. That is a big factor because otherwise a team has to win four games in as many days to claim the championship and that is particularly difficult to do.

Last year there was little surprise as the top four teams made the semifinal and the championship game featured No. 1 Arizona beating No. 2 UCLA 84-76.

Assuming that UCLA and Arizona stay the top two as they are now, let's see who has who left.

• USC (19-8, 11-5) has home games against Arizona and ASU, then a road trip to the mountain schools — Utah and Colorado.

• Utah (17-11, 10-7) has home games against USC-UCLA next week, then travels to Colorado (15-13, 7-10) for its regular season finale

• Oregon (15-13, 9-8) is also in the mix for a first round bye and has by far the easiest path. It plays rival Oregon State (10-18, 4-13) in Corvallis and then has home games against the bottom feeders Stanford (11-16, 5-11) and California (3-24, 2-14), although Stanford has played well of late and that includes an upset of Arizona.

If ASU can't finish fourth and it looks impossible given the schedule, fifth would be preferable because that means its first game in the conference tournament would likely be Cal.

Can Sun Devils return to what worked?

There have been a few spectacular offensive showings, most notably the Legends Classic win over Michigan and more recently the win over Oregon in Eugene. ASU shot 60.4% and 54% respectively in those two games but for the balance of the season, ASU has relied on its defense.

And while the offense didn't necessarily always shoot a high percentage, it thrived when it had good ball movement and players were making the extra pass. Before last night's win ASU had lost six of nine games and in many of those there was simply too much one-on-one play.

For 20 minutes it looked like last night's game would fall into that category. ASU had only three assists on 11 made field goals in a first half that ended with it trailing 26-25. In the second the Sun Devils tallied 13 assists on 17 field goals, shooting 54.8% in a half it won 42-33. A key point came when Desmond Cambridge took a pass at the wing, thought about hoisting a 3-pointer, then dished off to D.J. Horne who made the easier uncontested floater in the lane.

ASU forced 17 turnovers which compensated for Utah's 15-rebound advantage.

The win by ASU very much resembled the close games it pulled out early in the season.

The Cambridge rule

Devan Cambridge isn't the team's leading scorer. In fact, at 10.2 points he is fourth with brother Desmond the top scorer at 14.1. But the Sun Devils are 13-0 when he has scored in double figures. That includes last night's game in which he had 14, highlighted by a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left that proved the big basket of the night.

He picks and chooses when he shoots. He has 210 field goal tries on the season, 98 fewer than the team-leading D.J. Horne who has a team-high 308. He is second on the team in rebounds and blocked shots. But he makes the intangible plays that don't always show up on a stats sheet, keeping a ball in play, getting a deflection that leads to an opponent turnover, taking a charge.

He is also seen as an energy guy and a leader in the locker room. It is no coincidence that ASU sometimes struggles when he is on the bench.

Can Washington remain a big factor?

While the Cambridge brothers were huge transfer portal additions for coach Bobby Hurley, so was Warren Washington, who gave him something he hasn't had in a while in a 7-foot presence in the paint.

When ASU was playing well Washington was a big factor. His presence pulls the defense inside and opens up space for the shooters around the perimeter. Washington missed the Bay area road trip with COVID. He had six points on five shots in the loss to Colorado but looked stronger Saturday night, scoring 18 points with four blocked shots.

In the five games he played before last night, Washington was 16-for-38 from the field for 36 points. Take away the 12 he had against Washington State and it was 24 in four games. The Sun Devils need his production and just the threat of his scoring potential. The backup bigs simply aren't capable of contributing what Washington can.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU men's basketball faces uphill climb to hold conference position