Arizona State Sun Devils coach Bobby Hurley called out his players for their lack of focus and listening, and the ASU home crowd for its “sterile environment” after Wednesday night’s loss to West Virginia.
However, the Sun Devils and their home crowd responded on Saturday night with a much-needed win, led by a determined level of focus.
“We had a meeting, actually, about it. He wasn’t wrong. We wasn’t deliberately ignoring him,” ASU guard Moe Odum told reporters postgame. “When the coach draws something up, and we don’t run it right after, that’s considered not listening. So, he was right. We was not listening. We was not running out of bounds plays correctly, and he got on us for that.
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“He came out and said we don’t listen, which is true. We came back, and we had a meeting — the staff, the players — we just said, ‘We got to change it. It’s that simple.'”
The Sun Devils closed out their two-game homestand with an 82-68 win over Cincinnati, forcing 15 turnovers and shooting 46% from 3-point range.
“I’m not like a total idiot. I’m probably a partial idiot,” Hurley said. “There was a part of what I said to hopefully get through to the players, to be able to lock in a little more and concentrate on some of these little details. The margin of error is very slim at this level and in this league to win games. So you can’t afford to not be on the same page as much as possible.”
Hurley said his team proved on Saturday night what he’s felt all year: They don’t give up, they fight and they battle.
“It’s hard to always know what the response would be, but that’s why I, after the game the other night, I told everybody that I love coaching this team because they are tough and resilient and they battle, and that’s what they did,” Hurley said. “We had a really good practice yesterday. I think there was carry over effect to that to this game.
“It was probably the best we’ve been concentrated and focused the day before a game. We looked like the team that we were early in the season.”
ASU had a goal to hold the Bearcats under 70 points. Cincinnati scored 68 points, shooting 24% from 3-point range and 49% from the field.
Hurley said ASU may not be able to match up at every position against all the teams in the Big 12 every single night, but he felt good about the “quality of basketball” that was played on Saturday.
“Coming into this game, I respect how hard we competed. That’s a good sign. Take whatever positives we can take out of this, and then we have to figure out a way to get ready to play again here real soon,” Hurley said. “We were really good at Arizona, and I thought, ‘Heck, if we can play the No. 1 team in the country to a one-possession game under a minute, that says something — we can be competitive.’
“Then we laid an egg at Houston. So we’ve got to string together some quality games.”
In Hurley’s comments after ASU’s loss to West Virginia, he called out Anthony “Pig” Johnson, specifically, for not being in the right position to set a screen.
“We got to pick it up. Now that means everyone’s looking at us like we just don’t listen,” Johnson said postgame. “Now, we gotta all come together just because on the outside looking in, it looks bad, so now we gotta make it look way better, that we come together rather than going our individual ways.”
Johnson had 11 points on 3-of-8 shooting with four made free throws in 23 minutes against Cincinnati. He also credited the crowd for being into the game and creating an advantage.
Odum said Hurley talked with the team before the game and told them if they want the crowd to support them, they have to win games.
“There’s all these things that I say — even in terms of the crowd, that should be the first thing that I said tonight, but I didn’t really mention that I thought that they were really good,” Hurley said. “I think we gave them something to cheer about, so it’s a two-way street. It was far better, and we had a good advantage in that regard.”
ASU currently sits in 12th place in the Big 12 standings, at 11-9 with a 2-5 record in conference play.
The Sun Devils hit the road to play UCF on Tuesday before returning home to host No. 1 Arizona on Saturday to end their January slate.
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