Arizona State men's basketball team now will hit the road with no room for error

Arizona State men's basketball coach Bobby Hurley isn't quite sure what version of his team took the floor Saturday night against USC but he'd prefer not to see that one again. He's in search of the one that has shown resiliency, defensive intensity and demonstrated a close team bond for the other 19 games.

When last week started, the Sun Devils (15-5, 6-3) were in good position. They had emerged as the surprise team in the always-competitive Pac-12, sitting second and only one game behind frontrunner and traditional power UCLA.

But after a competitive 74-62 loss to the Bruins Thursday followed by a listless showing against USC (14-6, 6-3) in a 77-69 setback Saturday, the Sun Devils don't have much room for error. They're going to have to regroup on the road, with games at the Washington schools this week.

The performance on Saturday was particularly disappointing for Hurley, who himself was a tenacious competitor in his playing days at Duke.

“I think the reason I've connected so much with this team is because we've had some guys that weren't recruited heavily, they were overlooked and play with a chip on their shoulder. We certainly didn't have a chip on our shoulder today," Hurley said, in a short but pointed post-game press conference Saturday night. "That's why I've really appreciated this team so much is because of how hard they've competed and how they get after it. And that's why so many people have enjoyed watching us through most of the year.”

The Sun Devils are looking to advance to the post-season for the first time since 2020. They had back-to-back appearances before the 2021 tournament was canceled due to the COVID pandemic. The Sun Devils likely would have made it three in a row had that not been called off.

There are 11 games left before the Pac-12 tournament at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, slated for March 8-11. For the Sun Devils the schedule isn't necessarily favorable because seven of those are on the road. They still have a road game with rival Arizona (17-3, 6-3), which suffered some unexpected bumps in the road earlier but is coming off a home sweep of the Los Angeles schools to whom ASU lost.

Despite a loss to Arizona Saturday afternoon, UCLA (17-3, 8-1) still sits first in the conference, just ahead of Utah (14-7, 7-3). Then it's ASU, Arizona and USC tied for third. USC and UCLA will square off on Thursday.

For ASU, there are three two-game road sets, the first being the one this week starting Thursday at Washington (12-9, 4-6) and Washington State (9-11, 4-5) on Saturday. They still have to go to the Los Angeles schools (March 2 and March 4). Then there is the more doable set against the Bay area schools Stanford (7-12, 2-7) and California (3-16, 2-6) Feb. 9 and Feb. 11. They cannot settle for splits.

"We've dropped two at home to two very good teams. We're still in a very good position in our league and now we have to make up for it," Hurley said. "You lost two at home and now you got to figure out how to get those back through the last 11, steal a couple on the road."

There are four home games left with the Oregon schools stopping into Desert Financial Arena Feb. 2 and Feb. 4 and the mountain schools, Utah (14-7, 7-3) and Colorado (11-9, 3-6), coming in Feb. 16 and Feb. 18. ASU is 3-0 against those with Utah the only team it hasn't faced. The Sun Devils beat all three of the others on the road with wins over Oregon and Colorado both still standing as Quad 1 wins, a factor in the Sun Devils favor at the end of the season when teams are being considered for possible postseason berths.

ASU's third Quad 1 was a non-conference neutral court win over Creighton in Las Vegas with the Blue Jays now at No. 19 in the all-important NET rankings.

The two recent losses caused ASU to drop in the NET to 54, with the loss to the Trojans costing them 10 spots. The good new for the Sun Devils is that there are plenty of opportunities for quality wins the rest of the way that would bolster that metric.

Washington State has a losing record but ranks 75 in the NET so it would be another Quad 1 win if the Sun Devils can pull it off.

“We can't take anybody lightly," said senior forward Warren Washington, who had a season high and tied a career-high with 21 points in Saturday's loss. "We can't take any games off. Every game you gotta play like it is a championship game. We got to look at film. We gotta get back in the gym, look at what we did wrong and just make sure that we're doing a better job overall next week.”

Hurley was surprised by the lack of energy in Saturday's loss because he said he didn't go hard on his team in practice between games, particularly since it was coming off a draining effort against the Bruins on Thursday night.

"Mentally we didn't have the right enthusiasm to play and that's the responsibility of the coaches to make sure that guys are playing frenetically with great energy. We had four deflections at halftime. We had zero in the first six minutes of the second half. We had over 30 vs. UCLA. So we have no activity. we have to do something about it," he said.

Both the Washington and Washington State games will air on ESPNU.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State men's basketball has little room for error after home losses