To say it’s been a long season for the Arizona State men’s basketball program would be an understatement.
Arizona State (13-18) ended the regular season with an 85-57 loss to No. 9 Texas Tech (24-7) at home Saturday night, the latest in a recent run of short-handed outings. The loss was Arizona State’s program record-tying ninth straight at Desert Financial Arena as the Big 12 tournament looms this week.
The Sun Devils played without freshman star Jayden Quaintance, who suffered an apparent knee injury back on Feb. 23, has not played since then and Bobby Hurley does not expect him to be ready for tournament play. Adam Miller missed the game with hip and oblique injuries, and throw in B.J. Freeman who was dismissed from the team in late February, the Sun Devils were forced to play with just four players who came into the season expected to be part of the rotation.
Arizona State has played without at least one of its top nine rotation players in 50 combined games this season.
“It’s obviously tough losing a lot of guys unexpectedly but we still have enough,” Arizona State forward Basheer Jihad said after Saturday’s loss. “We have five guys we can put out there to give our best effort.”
To Jihad and Co.’s credit, the group of Sun Devils who saw action Saturday battled. They trailed Tech just 36-32 by halftime before running out of steam against the second-best Big 12 team.
Jihad noted it may not have been about getting tired, rather, he thought the team needed to give a “complete effort” rather than try to conserve energy.
“Down the stretch I think guys are trying to conserve energy especially in the first half,” he said. “But, I think that we can do a better job of, in spurts, giving a complete effort instead of taking lapses. We have more in the tank. We can give more. If we care enough we can give more. It’s tough for sure but it’s something we’re capable of.”
Hurley seemed to agree the effort was less complete over the final two games of the regular season.
“I told the guys the one thing I’m disappointed with, and for the most part we have been battling through these games and giving ourselves a chance even though it hasn’t gone our way … but the last two games, like we turned Arizona over six times. Today, we turned (Texas Tech) over twice,” Hurley said. “Playing that many small, fast guys and not having great size, you gotta be able to be more disruptive.
“I don’t know if that’s not expending enough energy and now trying hard enough or what, but it’s really not acceptable defensively.”
Jihad scored a team-high 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting. He hit double-digit scoring for the fourth straight game and is the only Sun Devil to play in all games so far this season.
“Obviously we have had an up-and-down season,” he said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to be here. I’m very grateful. I wish things could have went better — we had a lot of close games that didn’t go our way, wish we could have had those. We’d be talking a lot differently right now. I’m just grateful for everything that Arizona State has done for me.”
The Sun Devils open the Big 12 tournament Tuesday at 4 p.m. against Kansas State in Kansas City, Missouri, on EPSN+, 620 AM and the Arizona Sports app.
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