Undermanned, Arizona Basketball drops tough game against ASU

TEMPE, AZ- Despite adversity, Arizona Basketball (14-8, 5-4) drops third-straight game in tough loss to rival ASU Sun Devils.

Well, as the Arizona Basketball team entered Thursday’s contest against rival ASU in front of a raucous and rowdy crowd, all the chips were seemingly stacked up against the Cats.

Chase Jeter still not 100 percent, Brandon Williams out with a sprained knee, back-to-back road losses by a combined 44-points, playing on the road, what else could go wrong for Arizona?

Arizona Wildcats

Luckily, in rivalry games, the adversity can sometimes go out the window.

In this series, dominant is what the Wildcats have been, winners of seven-straight over the Sun Devils entering this one. Once again, things were shaping up for another epic showdown.

From the tip, it was electric! ASU would jump out to a 20-14 lead, but the Wildcats would respond, slowly chipping away at ASU’s lead in the first half.

Despite the mistakes, and Arizona trailing by as many as seven in the first half, the Wildcats would keep this one close in the first half, trailing by just three points at the break.

ASU would lead 36-33. Brandon Randolph would have a huge half finishing with 12 points, but the fouls and turnovers is really what put the Wildcats at a disadvantage here.

Needing a huge response in the second half, the Wildcats would battle.

Seemingly hitting big shot after big shot, ASU would get up as many as nine in the second half before the Wildcats would ultimately make an impressive run.

Trailing 44-35, the Wildcats would outscore ASU 32-17 over the next 11 minutes of play to take a 67-61 lead with 7:03 to play.

Unfortunately, that’s as large a lead as the Wildcats would get as they got into foul trouble and made some crucial mistakes down the stretch.

Trailing 83-80, Randolph would hit a HUGE three with roughly 24 seconds to go to tie this at 83, sending the game to overtime.

In extra play is where Arizona would fall apart, ultimately running out of gas as the Sun Devils went on to beat the Wildcats by a 95-88 final. It was the first win by ASU over Arizona nearly five years. It was also Bobby Hurley’s first win over the Cats as head coach of the Devils.

Ryan Luther, Justin Coleman and Randolph came up big tonight, but it just wasn’t enough to overcome on the road.

At Zona Zealots, we are DAMN proud the way the team competed and nearly came away victorious, we’re Arizona Basketball and we don’t take moral victories, but this is how you Bear Down!