Arizona center Christian Koloko slams home a dunk during the second half of Monday night’s win over Arizona State in Tempe.

 Rebecca Sasnett Photos, Arizona Daily Star

Sometimes it’s not what players and coaches say that best defines a basketball game. Sometimes an outside observer has a deeper perspective.

After Arizona beat ASU 91-79 Monday night, my friend Francico Romero tweeted his reaction in Spanish: ASU aplasto. A domir agusto.

Romero, the UA’s former Spanish language broadcaster for football and basketball, has known a spectrum of feelings — elation and anguish — from the Arizona-ASU rivalry since his days at Pueblo High School. He supplied this translation to his tweet: “ASU is crushed. I’ll sleep comfortably.”

Comfort? Enjoy it while you can.

Once the college basketball calendar flips to February, comfort is fleeting, replaced by uncertainty. If you are a live-and-die-with-the-Wildcats fan, there are few greater anxieties than watching your team fall into a 14-1 hole against the Sun Devils.

Arizona's Azuolas and Tautvilas Tubelis describe growing up together in Lithuania, how they've adjusted to life in America and what it's like to play for Tommy Lloyd.

There could’ve been no doubt that Arizona was getting ASU’s best shot. It’s just that the Sun Devils didn’t stock enough ammunition. Incredibly, the Wildcats outscored them 81-42 for the next 30 minutes.

By then, ASU coach Bobby Hurley was in a rare pose: Dispassionate, sitting on the bench.

But here’s another anxiety that manifests itself immediately: Arizona must play at Washington State on Thursday. The Cougars are the wood-chippers of Pac-12 basketball. They play slow. They beat ASU 51-29 in Tempe earlier this season. Yes, 51-29.

They’ve won five consecutive games by limiting opponents to, in order, 57, 54, 43, 60 and 64 points.

And although old Friel Court probably won’t have more than 3,000 fans, playing coach Kyle Smith’s team — ranked No. 22 nationally in defensive efficiency by Kenpom.com — is like sitting in the dentist’s chair and hearing “this might pinch or burn.”

Or both.

Dalen Terry and the Arizona bench celebrate a teammate’s 3-pointer during Monday’s second half.

With the exception of a Feb. 17 home game against Oregon State, every game on Arizona’s remaining Pac-12 schedule is likely to be more difficult than Monday’s game in Tempe.

Get a comfortable night’s rest while you can.

In retrospect, beating the Sun Devils shouldn’t have created that much worry. History suggested ASU’s weekend victory over No. 3 UCLA was a one-shot wonder.

Across its modest Pac-12 basketball history, ASU had beaten just four teams ranked in in the AP’s top four. It has been unable to follow up on any of those storm-the-court victories.

ASU stunned No. 1 Oregon State on the final day of the 1980-81 regular season. It lost its next game, a NCAA Tournament showdown against Kansas, by 17 points.

The Star's Justin Spears and Alec White report from Tempe following Arizona's 91-79 win over ASU and explain how the Wildcats took control after falling behind early.

On Valentine’s Day, 2014, ASU marred No. 2 Arizona’s 23-1 start to the season, winning in overtime. Alas, the Sun Devils were swept by Colorado and Utah the following week and went 2-6 the rest of the season.

In December 2017, ASU beat No. 2 Kansas in Lawrence. The Sun Devils then topped 3-6 Vanderbilt, 3-8 Longwood and 5-7 Pacific before succumbing to Arizona at McKale. ASU lost again a few days later at Colorado.

A later later, ASU shocked No. 1 Kansas in Tempe only to lose its next game to Princeton. It’s not that Princeton enjoyed a historic season; it finished 16-12.

Dalen Terry silences the crowd during the Wildcats’ rivalry win.

It shouldn’t have been too surprising that Arizona was better equipped for a Big Game than the Sun Devils.

Get this: Monday’s game was the 63rd time the Wildcats have played as the No. 4 team in the AP poll. In none of those games, all played between 1987 and 2022, has Arizona looked out of place as the nation’s four-ranked team.

They have gone 57-6, including what is now a 5-0 streak against ASU, winning those games by an average of 17 points. The scores: 116-80, 93-74, 73-60, 89-82 and now, 91-79.

Hurley was impressed: He told reporters, “They have multiple ways that they can beat you. It’s rare that a team has that quality of an inside game that they can go to in the half-court offense, yet be very lethal in the open court, too, in transition with the athleticism of their wings.”

The near-sellout crowd of 13,233 all saw the same thing: Arizona is a legit No. 4 team.

TEMPE — The fourth-ranked Arizona Wildcats routed Arizona State 91-79 at Desert Financial Arena Monday night to complete the season sweep of the Sun Devils.

Whenever Arizona has been ranked No. 4, it has been up to the billing. Its only losses over those 63 games have been against No. 2 Kansas in 1997, No. 8 Kansas in 2001, No. 8 Florida in 2003, No. 5 UCLA in 2017, against Wisconsin in the 2000 NCAA Tournament and against a 2013 Oregon team that won 28 games and reached the Sweet 16.

Perhaps No. 4 should be considered the lucky charm of UA basketball.

While ranked No. 4, Arizona beat No. 6 Duke in 2013, No. 8 Texas in 1999 and routed 29-6 Gonzaga in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, 84-61. A young coach, Tommy Lloyd, witnessed that game from the Zags’ bench.

He learned then what a No. 4 team looks like. On Monday in Tempe, Lloyd saw it from the other side. As Francisco Romero might say, “legítimo.”

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Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711