Brad Cesmat
The season isn’t going to be canceled, so all Arizona State can do is keep on playing and hope they turn the corner. Saturday night in their 73-64 loss to USC at Desert Financial Arena, the script went pretty much the same as other setbacks. The Trojans out rebounded the Sun Devils 50-30.
The shooting by Bobby Hurley’s team wasn’t good (33%), and the team only collected nine assists on the night. Not going to win many basketball games when those types of numbers are in black and white in the stat sheet. Numbers don’t lie.
Yes, they were short-handed once again without Remy Martin, Jalen Graham, Taeshon Cherry, and Jaelen House, but no one on the NCAA Committee is going to feel sorry for the Sun Devils when they look at the resume in early March.
Getting swept at home by the LA schools isn’t going to help their case come tournament time. The latest NET rankings have Arizona State at 112th in the nation.
What was once a promising season has been wrecked by injury, COVID-19, and a general lack of familiarity with the five players out on the floor at any given time. It was going to be a struggle to rebound this season, but no one expected this team to have Josh Christopher as the leading rebounder (22nd in the conference).
The best thing to do is flush the toilet and turn the attention to next week. IF the Sun Devils beat Oregon on the road, it would be their best victory of the season and stop the bleeding.
I don’t hear many out in the social media space who believe that’s possible, but this team is far too talented to continue to let the season fall apart. There’s plenty of time to right the ship.
