Which version of ASU will Wildcats see in Tempe on Saturday?

Anyone need a ticket to watch Saturday’s Arizona-ASU game? Bobby Hurley might be your guy.

The Sun Devils coach has only one condition: He gets to pick your gear.

“I just personally scooped up 50 tickets myself, and I don’t know if I have that many friends to give them to,” Hurley said Thursday in Tempe, eliciting chuckles. “But I’m going to find 50 people and put a gold T-shirt on or gold jersey on (them). It’s going to be an exciting environment.”

On that last point, Hurley may be correct. Not counting resale tickets, ASU had about 1,000 seats remaining via Ticketmaster as of Friday afternoon, thanks presumably in part to the fact that ASU is 11-2 and Arizona is 12-1 heading into the first round of their annual two-game intrastate series.

It would have even qualified as a Top-25 matchup had the Sun Devils not been crushed 97-60 at San Francisco just two days after jumping into the poll for the first time this season at No. 25.

In that Dec. 21 game, ASU shot just 27.9% while allowing the Dons to shoot 57.1%. San Francisco made 15 of 29 3-pointers.

The loss gave the Sun Devils a little extra to think about over a four-day Christmas break that ended Tuesday, when ASU began preparations for Saturday’s game.

“You hate to sit on a loss like that this long,” Hurley said. “As a competitor, you just want to get back out there and have another crack at it. But truthfully, I think it’s helped us more because we’ve been able to work through some of our issues.

“And also when you lose that way, your confidence gets shaken a little bit. So I feel like the way we practiced certainly today has given me good indications that we’ve been able to put that game behind us.”

The way UA coach Tommy Lloyd spoke earlier Thursday, during his weekly interview with reporters, he probably wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Having spent 22 seasons with Gonzaga, playing in the same conference as a USF team that is now 11-5, Lloyd said he would probably just chalk up ASU’s loss as an anomaly.

“USF is obviously having a good year,” Lloyd said. “They played really well that night, and ASU didn’t. I know how that feels to go on the road and just have one of those lackluster performances.”

In a sense, the game was just another data point on a season that is typical of a Hurley-coached ASU team. Annually one of the Pac-12’s most unpredictable teams, the Sun Devils play characteristically hard but also can win games they are expected to lose and lose games they are expected to win.

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This time they’ve added to the mystery by building up an 11-2 record that counts wins over Michigan and Creighton largely without their most talented player, forward Marcus Bagley. After playing in the Sun Devils’ first two games, Bagley disappeared for what are still largely unclear reasons.

Bagley tweeted after his last game, on Nov. 10 against ASU, that he was suspended after tweeting that he said “some things to coach Hurley that I shouldn’t have said.” Over three weeks later, after ASU beat Colorado and Stanford in its two early Pac-12 games, Hurley indicated the situation has morphed into an indefinite separation.

Bagley “has stepped away and we’re going to support him,” Hurley said, according to the Arizona Republic. “That’s all I’m going to say for now.”

Without Bagley, ASU has only the 103rd-ranked team in offensive efficiency (scoring 105.5 points per 100 possessions) but ranks No. 35 in defensive efficiency and keeps opponents to just 40.5% shooting from two-point range.

That suggests another rough test inside for UA, which has the country’s best two-point percentage (62.5%) but knows the feeling of being unable to score in Tempe.

During their 91-79 win last Feb. 7 at ASU, the Wildcats missed their first three shots and turned the ball over three times in the first three minutes, going nearly four minutes before hitting a field goal. They fell quickly behind, 14-1.

ASU went on to win seven of their next nine games after that night, spinning around a season that began on a 2-6 note. While they changed personnel notably in the offseason, Lloyd said he still sees some of the same characteristics in the Sun Devils.

“There’s definitely some similarities with the effort and energy and the scrappiness,” Lloyd said. “I think people forget last year, they were they played really well towards the end of the season and I think they just kind of continued that trend.”

The Sun Devils finished 14-17 last season, losing 71-70 to Stanford in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals, before building their 11-2 record so far this season.

So was that USF game an anomaly? Arizona will find out on Saturday.

“I think we’ve established our identity and we’ve kind of lost our way a little bit with that in the last two games,” Hurley said. “We’ve had some good practices where the guys are defending with the appropriate energy and intentions and so it’s been exciting to see that but … you’ve got to feel good about what we’ve done and where we are today.”