ASU season recap: Season ends with disappointment, ‘what ifs’

After Arizona State’s first-round exit in the Pac-12 Tournament against Stanford on Wednesday, head coach Bobby Hurley reflected on the “what ifs” of the season.

The Sun Devils led 69-55 with just over three minutes to go, but a 16-1 run and a banked-in buzzer-beater gave Stanford the win in Las Vegas. The loss to the Cardinal left a crushing reality for the Sun Devils, who had found their rhythm heading into the tournament winning seven of their previous eight contests.

ASU started slowly with a 7-15 record to open the season, including a loss at the buzzer to the University of California, Riverside, but finished with a 14-17 record.

“You’ll always wonder and play the ‘what if’ game and say we really, I thought, played very well,” Hurley said. “It was our best shooting game of the season from three (15-28) and did a lot of nice things.

“It feels like it’s come full circle from Riverside when they were throwing the 70-footer up on us and then, that’s like in the beginning, and now here we are at the end. So it’s tough.”

ASU had only returned three contributors from last season’s team in Kimani Lawrence, Jalen Graham and Marcus Bagley (who appeared in three games for the Sun Devils due to injury.)

Chemistry and familiarity seemed to be an early-season issue, but the team started to turn the corner with an upset of then-No. 3 UCLA in February.

ASU finished the season 7-4 from that point, but two of the four losses were to No. 4 Arizona and UCLA.

“Once we did get into a rhythm, you know, in the middle of January and we started playing some good basketball, I think the guys, to their credit, even though our record was not outstanding, they fought and battled,” Hurley said after the season-ending loss to Stanford.

“It was very impressive that the team showed that kind of character to continue to fight. And I think it took this type of game for us to lose. So it makes you wonder what might have been if we could have got this done today.”