Hurley: ‘My players didn’t even want me to talk to them’ after ASU’s fifth straight loss

TEMPE — “Premium frustration level” is how head coach Bobby Hurley described the locker room after ASU’s 74-70 loss to TCU on Saturday.

Trivial turnovers, such as an inbound violation as ASU was down three with 18 seconds left, again plagued the team late as it tried to come back from a 13-point deficit with less than 10 minutes remaining.

The loss was yet another example of the Sun Devils coming within arm’s reach of a win but not being able to seal the deal. It also included ASU’s fourth ejection of a senior over less than a month’s time.

“My players didn’t even want me to talk to them after the game. ‘What do you want me to say at this point?’ is some of the comments I got from my own players,” Hurley said. “We’re kind of finding new ways maybe each game to not be able to get a win.”

ASU (12-13, 3-11) was just coming off a very respectable showing in a double-overtime thriller in Lubbock, ultimately falling to No. 12 Texas Tech on Wednesday.

Hurley said the Sun Devils just didn’t have that same juice in the loss to TCU (14-11, 7-7), as they have continued playing up — or, more notably, down — to its level of competition.

“We did not have that same look … or pop to how we played, it was hard for us to get really engaged in the game,” Hurley said.

The Horned Frogs were lights out early when that wasn’t their M-O. TCU came into the game 319th in overall shooting and 328th in 3-point shooting, but it started 8-for-10 and shot 56.5% for the first half, hitting its first three 3s.

ASU, meanwhile, was 10 of 29 in the half with field goal droughts of 7:39 and 3:39.

BJ Freeman, who had a game-high 21 points, said he felt the energy lacking early and that it’s been an issue for the Sun Devils all season for the first four minutes of halves, requiring them to play “get back” late in games.

“That’s not good basketball for us,” Freeman said. “We play good basketball by getting stops, getting (back on) defense, rebounding the ball, kicking the ball ahead and playing real fast. Once we’re not doing that, we know something is up. When we start playing sluggish and people getting lazy and just watching the basketball, but like I always say, it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Freeman added getting “stress off (Hurley’s) back” weighs on the players’ minds as the losing streak has now reached five games overall and six straight home games.

Hurley noted ASU’s next game will be no different stylistically going from a grind-you-out TCU to hosting No. 6 Houston on Tuesday at 7 p.m. MST.

Related

ASU's Adam Miller thrown out vs. TCU, his second ejection in 4 gamesCourt rulings grant NCAA athletes from high school class of 2022 another year of eligibilityASU basketball to open Acrisure Series against LSU during Thanksgiving weekASU men’s basketball to face Oklahoma in Tulsa neutral-court matchupHow did former Arizona Wildcats, ASU Sun Devils and GCU ‘Lopes perform in NBA Summer League?Thunder trade former ASU G Lu Dort to Hawks in deal that includes former No. 1 pick