Arizona State crushed by No. 5 Houston in show of ‘culture’ and ‘identity’

TEMPE — Bobby Hurley got a firsthand look at a program with an elite standard on Tuesday, as Arizona State was crushed by No. 5 Houston, 80-65, its seventh straight loss at Desert Financial Arena.

“Wish I could run here and give you a million reasons why it didn’t work out for us, but the bottom line is they were better than us,” Hurley said postgame. “They have a bunch of grown men, and they really get after it on defense. It feels like there are six guys on the floor.

“I watched them in pregame warm-ups. They were all talking, they were all super engaged when I came out. … Knew we would have our hands full,” he continued. “Lot of coaches throw around words like ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ as cliches, but they have it. Gets them to play really hard and together and the right way.”

Meanwhile, Hurley was called for a technical foul in the first half during an 18-5 Houston run that was enough to get the lead to double-digits, where it stayed the rest of the way.

Hurley had turned red with frustration at an official going into back-to-back timeouts earlier in the half, and he finally earned the technical with 3:27 left in the half.

The ensuing free throws gave Houston a 40-26 lead after it was a five-point game just five minutes earlier.

ASU showed elite offense on a few early possessions with unselfish ball movement at its core that mirrored its exceptional performance against Texas Tech from the prior week.

However, just as the offensive flashes throughout the season have been, they remained only flashes that couldn’t be sustained, leaving the offense to devolve back into excessive turnovers (12 assists to 13 turnovers) and an over-reliance on the 3-point shot (8-for-22 3-point shooting to 11-for-22 on 2-point).

bobby hurley was unsure of why asu was able to string together some solid offense but not sustain it for longer than a few possessions pic.twitter.com/7ldcVltK37

— Damon Allred (@iamdamonallred) February 19, 2025

Point guard Alston Mason led ASU with 26 points. He had back-to-back deep 3s during a late 11-0 run that saw the Sun Devils get within 12 with 1:30 remaining.

He explained postgame Houston played with much more connectivity than ASU.

“They’re just connected. They know where their guy is gonna be, they all got good chemistry, so they all feed off each other,” Mason said.

He said ASU (12-14, 3-12) just needs to get one win, however it may come, so the team can ease back into a better space for its approach.

Houston (22-4, 14-1) was led by Cryer (18 points) and Emmanuel Sharp (17) as it retained its lead for first-place in the Big 12.

“Cryer’s a really tough matchup, we lost him, and we lost Sharp some in the second half,” Hurley said. “They have shooting, and they have fierce interior players that can really get stuff done, so they present a lot of issues for you.”

Jayden Quaintance returns to play limited minutes for Arizona State

Playing in his first game since an ankle injury kept him out of two, freshman center Jayden Quaintance started alongside Shawn Phillips Jr.

The biggest visible difference the 17-year-old makes is as a rebounder, where he routinely took on multiple Cougars at a time and made his presence felt. His youth showed, however, against a very physical Houston group that plays a grown man’s type of game.

Tallying just 13 minutes in the first half before he was shut down for the second, he finished with two rebounds and two assists, missing his only two shot attempts.

As a result of the double-center starting lineup, power forward Basheer Jihad came off the bench for the first time as a Sun Devil.

The rotational tweak could hardly be seen through, as Phillips picked up his fourth foul 2:27 into the second half. He returned with 8:35 left in the contest.

Phillips has provided strong rim protection in recent weeks, so when he was out, the Cougars took advantage.

The tweak worked well enough in the minutes it got, as Phillips finished a +2 compared to Jihad’s -10.

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