As ASU men's basketball enters the final and most challenging stretch of its season. The team will need to be at its best to get a chance at an NCAA Tournament appearance but ASU is on the outside looking in toward this year's tournament picture, having lost six of its last 10 games after a 15-3 start to the season.
According to The Bracket Project, ASU is included in just two of 114 analyzed brackets. ESPN's Joe Lunardi listed ASU in his "Next Four Out" category, including the fifth-through-eighth teams left off his bracket projection.
ASU's final three regular-season games are the toughest on its schedule and its best opportunities to pick up signature wins. It finishes the season with road matchups against the top three teams in the Pac-12 conference standings: No. 2 UA, No. 1 UCLA and No. 3 USC.
ASU competed well against UA and UCLA in initial matchups in Tempe earlier this season despite losing against both. A furious second-half comeback against UA on Dec. 31 brought ASU within two points with 13 minutes remaining before foul trouble from sophomore guard Frankie Collins, and fifth-year guard Desmond Cambridge Jr. led to a 69-60 UA victory.
READ MORE: ASU's second half flurry not enough in rivalry game as Sun Devils fall 69-60 to Arizona
Junior guard DJ Horne said despite ASU's frenzied second-half push against UA in Tempe, the team will have to start stronger to have a shot at winning in Tucson this weekend.
"Arizona is a great team. So to be able to get down like that and then fight back into the game and have a chance to win tells us a lot," Horne said. "It just tells us that we need to be on our game from the jump and not have to dig ourselves in a hole like that to climb out."
ASU head coach Bobby Hurley said although he expects the team to play well defensively, its best chance of winning in Tucson will be shoring up its offense.
"We know we have to play more efficiently on offense," Hurley said. "Especially on the road against a team that can score, has a lot of firepower and can score around the basket."
When ASU hosted UCLA in Tempe on Jan. 19, the Sun Devils held a five-point lead at halftime and were up two with under six minutes remaining until UCLA outscored the Sun Devils 16-2 to win 74-62.
READ MORE: Elite defense, adaptable offense gives men's basketball its best start of Bobby Hurley era
USC's visit two days later was ASU's worst performance against the three teams it will see on the road again this weekend. ASU was down 22 with just over five minutes remaining before it finished with a futile 16-0 run to cut the final score to just 77-69.
If ASU fails to win any of its tough road games to end the regular season, the team's last chance of making the NCAA Tournament will require winning the Pac-12 conference tournament and earning the conference's automatic bid.
The top four teams by in-conference record receive a first-round bye in the conference tournament, providing them the advantage of extra rest and fewer chances to lose and be knocked out.
As it stands, ASU is in fourth place in conference standings with a 10-7 in-conference record. Utah and Oregon have a shot at knocking ASU from its perch in the top four and a first-round bye in the Pac-12 conference tournament.
ASU ranks over fifth-place 10-8 Utah due to its head-to-head victory over Utah last Saturday. Sixth-place Oregon, at 9-8, is also a threat to surpass ASU and end the season in the conference's top four.
Utah's remaining schedule includes a home game against USC and a road trip to Colorado.
The end of Oregon's season stands in stark contrast to ASU's: it plays the bottom three teams in the conference standings, Oregon State, Stanford and California, to finish the season.
To give itself a chance to remain in the NCAA Tournament at-large picture and the top four in the Pac-12 conference standings, ASU must win at least one of the season's final three games on the road to avoid being passed by Utah or Oregon.
However, if ASU loses its bye, it could still make a run in the Pac-12 tournament. An underdog winning the Pac-12 tournament and parlaying that into NCAA Tournament success is not unprecedented.
Oregon State entered the 2021 Pac-12 conference tournament sixth in conference standings with a 10-10 in-conference record, but went on to win the Pac-12 tournament and make a run to the Elite Eight title.
Hurley said for ASU to put itself in a position to compete in Las Vegas and possibly beyond, it will need to find a way to win games in its closing stretch.
"If we want to prove we belong in (the NCAA Tournament) or if we want to prove to ourselves that we can go to Vegas and win (the Pac-12 Tournament), then we gotta start winning games now," Hurley said.
After losing to Colorado 67-59 last Thursday, senior forward Warren Washington said ASU's chances of winning big games depend on the ability to hit shots.
"I feel like when we're making shots, we can beat anybody in the country just because we have one of the best defenses," Washington said. "But when we're not making shots, it feels like we could lose to anybody."
ASU plays UA in Tucson Saturday at noon MST in McKale Memorial Center. The Pac-12 conference tournament begins March 8, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Edited by Walker Smith, Jasmine Kabiri and Piper Hansen.
Reach the reporter at awakefi3@asu.edu and follow @_alexwakefield on Twitter.
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