With a majority of its games at home down the stretch of the season, the ASU men's basketball team knew it had to take advantage of every opportunity to improve its seeding in next month's Pac-12 Men's Basketball Tournament.
Instead, ASU had its worst offensive game in six years.
The Sun Devils (11-14, 4-8 Pac-12) lost to California 68-43 Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Arena. It was ASU's lowest point total in the Bobby Hurley era and fewest at home since a 55-41 loss to Stanford in 2011.
"It was embarrassing," junior guard Kodi Justice said. "It was embarrassing to perform like that. We didn't give ourselves a chance to get back in the race."
The offensive struggles started early for ASU, but the much-maligned Sun Devil defense came out of the gates ready to roll.
The Sun Devils swarmed Cal and forced 11 Golden Bear turnovers in the first half, scoring nine points off of those miscues and keeping the visitors off-balance.
After a Cal advantage early, the ASU defense allowed the offense to find some sort of rhythm and knot the game at 17-all with 6:27 remaining in the first half.
"Seventeen," Hurley said. "We had a hard time moving off that number."
That they did, as sophomore guard Ivan Rabb and graduate transfer guard Grant Mullins took over the game for the Golden Bears, contributing 12 points to a 15-0 Cal run that put the game on ice early.
"If you would have told me they would have scored 28 points at halftime, I'd have been like, we have a pretty good chance at winning this game," Justice said. "I felt good with our chances coming into the second half."
But the anemic offense continued into the second stanza for the Sun Devils, as they missed their first six shots out of the locker room.
With each passing minute, Wells Fargo Arena let out more and more air. One of the moments of excitement in the arena came from the latest addition to the curtain of distraction: "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" actor Charlie Day.
It's always Sunny in Tempe ☉ pic.twitter.com/hH9jutTGso
— Sun Devil Athletics (@TheSunDevils) February 9, 2017
"There wasn't much to say," Justice said. "What can you say when they're scoring the ball, dumping it down, getting and-ones, making all the right plays and we just are putting the ball in the hole and we stop playing defense."
"They had us bottled up pretty good and guys were in their own mind, struggling with not making shots," Hurley said.
Not only were just two Sun Devils in double digits scoring — senior forward Obinna Oleka (12 points) and junior guard Shannon Evans (10) — but the only player to shoot over 40 percent was freshman forward Ramon Vila, who made his only shot.
A win could have given the Sun Devils a push in the right direction with four home games left on the schedule. Instead, ASU is left licking its wounds and wondering how it can move on from the worst offensive performance of the season.
"It just wasn't meant to be for us tonight," Hurley said.
Reach the reporter at mtonis@asu.edu or follow @Tonis_The_Tiger on Twitter.
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