Even with a normal lineup, Arizona didn't leave much room for error against ASU

Unable to start all six of his seniors Tuesday even if he wanted to, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd first sounded them out.

Whether to start fifth-year standout Caleb Love for Senior Night wasn’t even a question, and Lloyd opted to put the other Wildcat senior who was recruited as a scholarship player, forward Trey Townsend, back into the lineup.

That left three more open spots for what became Arizona’s 113-100 win over ASU on Tuesday. So Lloyd asked the four seniors who joined the program as walk-ons — Grant Weitman, Will Menaugh, Luke Champion and Lloyd’s son, Liam — what they thought.

“I obviously thought about it, like ‘Oh, no, I’ve got to figure this out,’” Lloyd said. “And you know what those dudes said? Those dudes told me, ‘You ain’t doing that to us, coach. This is about our team and our program. You’re not putting us in that position because the most important thing is we win that game.’”

Lloyd detailed how it broke down.

“Grant said, ‘I started last year. I’m never starting again.’” Lloyd said, referring to what was Weitman’s senior game before he opted to return for a fifth year. “Big Will said, ‘Coach, if you start me, I’ll be pissed.’ Champ was fine either way. And Liam said, ‘Hell no.’ So it wasn’t a hard decision.

“When you have kids like that in your program, it says something. Not one of those guys is about themselves.”

They knew that starting walk-ons, even for a single possession, in such a high-stakes game can be a gamble for a team.

Two years earlier, Arizona walk-ons Jordan Mains and Matthew Lang held their own in a start against ASU, but the Sun Devils jumped out to an 8-7 lead during the three minutes before normal UA starters Azuolas Tubelis and Kerr Kriisa replaced them — and ASU wound up winning by a point when Desmond Cambridge hit a 60-foot buzzer beater.

The Wildcats couldn’t afford a repeat of anything like that game. They had lost four of their previous six games and still weren’t assured to get one of four double-byes in the Big 12 Tournament, while they have also been in danger of slipping below a preferred top-four NCAA Tournament seed.

Also: UA is scheduled to play at Kansas on Saturday. While it wasn’t a must-win for the Wildcats, it was pretty close.

So no walk-on starters it was.

“I’m sure a bunch of guys would have wanted to have that moment, but they’re so selfless for the team,” center Tobe Awaka said. “They knew the point in the season we’re at and what our goals are. The main goal was just to take care of business and leave here with a win.”

As it turned out, in part because they allowed ASU to make 12 of 23 3-pointers, the Wildcats barely left themselves enough breathing room anyway.

UA led 55-47 at halftime and by up to 14 points in the second half, but the Sun Devils’ 3s kept them hanging around. They gave the Wildcats their last scare with 6:12 to go, when guard Alston Mason hit a 3-pointer to cut UA’s lead to just 89-86.

Lloyd was having flashbacks. He knew Cambridge’s 60-footer was only one of 11 3-pointers the Sun Devils made at McKale two years earlier on Senior Day.

“We had the same game against them two years ago here, where they hit a bunch of what I would consider tougher shots,” Lloyd said. “I don’t know if we panicked or whatever happened, but they kept it close, kept it close, kept it close, and gave themselves a chance to win at the end, and they threw in that 60-footer.

“So I was feeling that, but our team, I just kept telling them, ‘Hey, there’s lots of ways to win a game.’”

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While the Sun Devils may have simply hit a few difficult shots against the odds, it’s also true that ASU was severely shorthanded, unable to play defense aggressively for fear of foul trouble and fatigue that could (and did) knock some of their six key players out.

ASU coach Bobby Hurley even played his walk-on son, Bobby, as well as guard Trevor Best, who reclassified from the high school class of 2025 into 2024 and didn’t suit up until January.

If nothing else, the Sun Devils’ 3-point shooting was part of a disturbing trend for the Wildcats. During their Feb. 22 loss to BYU, the Cougars hit 14 of 31 3-pointers. Iowa State hit 11 of 21 (including 9 of 13 in the first half) while ASU nailed 12 of 23.

That’s a 3-point defense of 49.3% over those three games.

After Tuesday’s game, Awaka said part of UA’s problem defensively was a lack of communication that affected “schematic and logistical things,” and Lloyd didn’t argue with that.

“Tobe’s on the floor so I’m gonna trust he’s right, but we’ll go back and watch it,” Lloyd said. “Obviously, that’s three out of four games where teams have played pretty well offensively against us.

“So we’ve got to figure out: Is there a code that’s been cracked? Is it a little bit the code being cracked and a little bit of bad luck? Sometimes they just make the shot, right? So we’ve got to dig a little deeper and look into it.”

Ultimately, the Wildcats survived Tuesday, following Mason’s 3 with an 8-0 run during which two ASU starters fouled out: Basheer Jihad (with 5:12 to go) and Shawn Phillips (3:59).

The Wildcats led by double digits the rest of the way, scoring their most points since they put 122 on Morgan State in their 2023-24 opener, during what was the first UA-ASU game since 1973 in which both teams scored in triple digits.

Their ultimate margin of victory left just enough cushion for Weitman, Champion, Menaugh and Liam Lloyd to make one-minute appearances at the end of the game, while Tommy Lloyd and his seniors briefly took the microphone in part to thank fans.

Later, while addressing media just after midnight Wednesday morning, Lloyd looked at the big picture.

Though its defensive slippage may be of concern heading toward the postseason, Arizona had surpassed its fifth-place prediction in the Big 12’s preseason poll despite a 6-5 nonconference season, and won’t have to play more than three games in the Big 12 Tournament next week because of the double-bye.

“I think that’s something that should be commended, especially with the way our season started,” Lloyd said. “Now, I’m not disowning my responsibility for how the season started, but sometimes it starts that way, and our guys dug deep and fought their way back.

“So to have a double-bye in the Big 12 and be one of the top four teams, it’s pretty impressive. I’m proud of our guys for that.”

Photos: Arizona wraps their home schedule with a 113-100 win over arch-rival ASU, Big 12 basketball