Over the past month, the ASU men's basketball season has been on a downward spiral. Following their fifth straight home loss and a last-second 70-71 defeat to Kansas State, the Sun Devils sit at 12-10, with their chances of making the NCAA Tournament dwindling with each loss.
A major reason for ASU's struggles has been a lack of execution, especially during crunch time, and injuries heavily affecting the team's rotation. With junior guard Austin Nunez out for the season, head coach Bobby Hurley has only six players averaging more than 20 minutes and only eight players averaging more than 10 minutes, with a minimum of 17 games played.
When freshman big Jayden Quaintance was unavailable for the Jan. 28 game at Colorado and senior guard BJ Freeman hurt his thigh in the first few minutes of the same contest, both junior center Shawn Phillips Jr. and freshman wing Amier Ali saw their season-high in minutes with 28 and 26 respectively.
Freshman guard Joson Sanon sustained an ankle injury that sidelined him to begin 2025. In the 10 games since, Hurley has played an incredibly tight rotation with five players averaging over 30 minutes per game. Senior guard Alston Mason's 38.2 minutes per game over that stretch would be the second-highest in the country if kept up for the entire season.
The travel schedule has not helped with fatigue either. ASU played consecutive away games at Cincinnati and West Virginia in a three-day span; in any situation, this would be tough on the players but increasingly so when the starters were playing such high minutes.
"It's tough playing Cincinnati and West Virginia back-to-back like that, and coming home at 5 a.m.," senior forward Basheer Jihad said following ASU's 61-76 loss to No. 3 Iowa State. "But that's the game of basketball. We have to adjust to it and get healthy."
Even with players healthy, Hurley has been questioned for the lack of bench minutes. Phillips Jr. compiled five boards, two assists and a block in nine minutes of first-half play versus the UA Wildcats but only played five minutes in the second half as UA pulled away at the end.
At Colorado, Ali did not shoot particularly well but made an impact on the glass with seven rebounds. In the Sun Devils' next outing at home versus UA, Ali did not play a single minute in a game where ASU was out-rebounded by 14.
"In games like this, you go with your gut and your instincts and they told me (to) play a tighter rotation tonight, play the guys that have been playing the most minutes," Hurley said after the UA loss. "It was just a coach's decision tonight."
Part of a tight rotation can be because of the roster at hand. Mason's experience as a true point guard is extremely valuable on this Sun Devil team because of the lack of consistent playmaking. The team is 210th in assists and averages nearly a 1:1 assist-turnover ratio, so his high minutes are not surprising.
With an already tight rotation, one of their purest scorers, Sanon, is playing only 24.5 minutes per game, and since coming back from injury, his production has completely fallen off from his hot-shooting start to the season.
The freshman averaged 13.5 points shooting 47.5% from the field and 48.3% from distance in his first 12 games. Following his ankle injury, those numbers have been reduced to just 5.8 points on 31.6% shooting and 23.8% from deep.
"We got to find him, we got to get him easier shots," redshirt senior guard Adam Miller said. "When he's out there having to go back and forth, especially coming back from that injury, and creating his own, it's not as easy."
Whether Sanon simply needs to get in a rhythm or is forcing shots at times, it's difficult when one of the team's key players is struggling offensively. Hurley has played Sanon just 22 minutes in each of the last two games, close losses to UA and Kansas State, but stuck with a mostly six or seven-man group.
Hurley's instincts may be telling him to stick with his core pieces but as the Sun Devils March Madness chances continue to plummet, he could be looking toward his bench as ASU scrambles for solutions.
Edited by Henry Smardo, Abigail Beck and Katrina Michalak.
Reach the reporter at pvallur2@asu.edu and follow @PrathamValluri on X.
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Pratham is a sophomore studying sports journalism with a minor in business. This is his fourth semester with The State Press.