Desmond Cambridge's 60-foot stunner at the buzzer spoils Senior Day for Wildcats

In the split second before Arizona completed a memorable Senior Day script Saturday, Desmond Cambridge turned it into a nightmare.

The ASU senior guard drilled a 60-foot shot as time expired to give the Sun Devils an 89-88 victory over Arizona in the Wildcats’ home finale at McKale Center.

The result ended the Wildcats’ chances of defending their Pac-12 regular-season championship outright and sent seniors Cedric Henderson, Courtney Ramey, Jordan Mains and Matt Lang out of the building on a rough note after all of them played roles in a game that Arizona trailed in for only 11 minutes.

The loss dropped Arizona to 24-5, 13-5 in the Pac-12, meaning UCLA has now clinched a share of the regular-season title and can win it outright by beating Colorado on Sunday. ASU improved to 20-9, 11-7, vastly improving its chances of receiving an NCAA Tournament berth.

The loss also likely slipped the Wildcats below UCLA in line for a West Regional placement in the NCAA Tournament and damaged the Wildcats’ chances of getting a top-two seed.

All because of one improbable shot.

“I don’t know what the odds are on that shot going in, but probably like 98 times out of 100 we’re sitting here talking about a different thing,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “But it was one of those 2 or 3% chances, and good for the kid. It was a heck of a shot.”

Cambridge’s shot prompted the Sun Devils to mob him madly across the McKale Center floor, while leaving several UA players in shocked stillness and quieting the sellout crowd.

It also apparently surprised Cambridge himself.

“If I’m being completely honest, I make those shots all the time, but that shot I really did not think was going in,” Cambridge said. “I really just wanted it to be a nice miss and everyone in the crowd would go ‘ooh.’ When it went in, I could only scream because it still doesn’t make sense to me.”

Lloyd disagreed with Cambridge’s projection — and he might have had the best view in the house of Cambridge’s release and the angle to the basket.

“He shot it right in front of me, and right when it left his hand I thought it had a chance,” Lloyd said. “It was dead online.”

For ASU, Cambridge’s game-winner was a fitting end to a game in which the Sun Devils shot well beyond their normal efficiency. ASU entered Saturday’s game ranked last in the Pac-12 in 3-point shooting (29.0) and eighth in overall field-goal shooting (41.4) during conference games but shot 53.7% overall and hit 6 of 16 3-pointers (37.5%).

“We were terrible in our execution,” said Henderson, who led the Wildcats with 19 points. “We scouted them and knew what was supposed to be done. They hit tough shots.”

While Cambridge’s shot wasn’t the only difficult one ASU made, Lloyd said the Wildcats didn’t follow their game plan and made several “individual mistakes” defensively. He also yanked standout forward Azuolas Tubelis off the floor four times in the final four minutes for defensive purposes

“I thought Zu was OK. I thought defensively he was bad,” Lloyd said. “He just didn’t play great defense, and that’s kind of disappointing.”

The Wildcats also hurt themselves by making only 23 of their 34 free throws (67.6%), failing to take full advantage of the 24 extra trips to the free-throw line than ASU made. The Sun Devils hit 6 of 10 free throws, meaning UA scored 17 more points at the line.

“You’d like to be making more, and it probably makes a difference,” Lloyd said.

Still, UA managed to creep within a point of ASU at halftime on its own buzzer-beater — a 3-pointer from the right side by Henderson at the end of the first half — and took leads of up to 10 points in the second half.

UA led 78-68 with 6:30 left after a pair of free throws by Henderson, but the Wildcats committed four turnovers and shot 1 for 4 from the field the rest of the way.

“When you’re playing in front of a home crowd, you want to deliver a knockout punch,” Lloyd said. “Maybe you make a bad decision with a shot — and I want our guys to have freedom to pick and choose when they shoot — but we also had a couple of turnovers that you just can’t afford at that time of the game.

“You have to understand the other teams are desperate. They’re going to be reaching. They’re going to be poking, and not every foul is gonna get called by the officials. … As a player, you’ve got to have an understanding of that.”

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

The end result was that UA’s slippage down the stretch set the stage for Cambridge to deliver his stunner.

After Arizona’s Pelle Larsson drove for a layup that gave UA an 87-86 lead with 29 seconds to go, the Wildcats defended the Sun Devils late into a possession in which guard DJ Horne finally found an open 3-point attempt but missed it.

Arizona center Oumar Ballo then picked up the rebound and was fouled, getting a chance to all but end the game with two free throw attempts and just 2.9 seconds left on the clock.

He missed the first, leaving UA with a one-point lead and making the second one less critical, since ASU probably had only enough time to make a 3-pointer anyway.

The Sun Devils also did not have a timeout remaining, so a second miss by Ballo would force them to improvise quickly if they pulled down the rebound.

Instead, Ballo took the second free throw and made it, allowing ASU to set up its final play.

“You probably can argue that we should have maybe had Oumar miss that last free throw, and that’s stuff that I’ll wear. That’s on me ” Lloyd said. “I just didn’t want to put more on Oumar’s plate. I want him to shoot it. I think I know Oumar’s shooting percentage pretty well, and I thought maybe there’s a 50% chance he makes it and a 50% chance he misses it.”

Then, Arizona’s loose defense made ASU’s final play arguably somewhat easier, with most of its players at or beyond the half-court line. ASU’s Jamiya Neal inbounded an uncontested pass to Cambridge as he cut across the free-throw line to the right side of the court.

Cambridge shook easily loose off a screen from Horne.

“Obviously if we had to do it again, we would do it differently,” Lloyd said. “Maybe on a made free throw, we’d have somebody on the ball … and maybe our guys would be a little stickier. We told our guys to pick them up closer, and I thought maybe we were a little soft on that switch.

“But from a player’s perspective, they shoot half-courters all the time, and they know how hard they are to make. And the last thing a player wants to do is foul in that situation, so it kind of puts them in a tough spot.”

After taking Neal’s pass, Cambridge took one dribble as he raced up the right sideline. Nearly unguarded, he lofted the ball up from the “L” in the Lute Olson signature, about 60 feet from the basket.

The ball didn’t touch the backboard or rim. Just the net.

“He hit a big-time shot, that’s all I can say,” UA guard Courtney Ramey said. “One step before half court, I mean, if he shot that shot 10 times, I don’t think he’s gonna get the result. But he’s a good player, and we gave him a chance to make that shot.”

Lloyd didn’t second-guess himself for starting walk-ons Mains and Lang despite Saturday’s game having potentially immense implications for the Wildcats in the Pac-12 race and NCAA Tournament placement.

The walk-ons mostly appeared to hold their own. On one play, Mains put back his own missed layup and later recorded a steal from Horne that led to a layup from Henderson. Mains and Lang played nearly three minutes before Kerr Kriisa and Tubelis went in for them at the 17:17 mark, when ASU held an 8-7 lead.

Lloyd said he went back and forth on the decision before waking up Saturday and feeling it was the right thing to do.

“Jordan was fine and Matt was fine, too,” Lloyd said. “And I just think you have to have a bigger perspective than that. It’s about treating people right. It’s about honoring people that make a ton of sacrifices and contribute to your program.”

It was Senior Day, after all. Maybe not the one Arizona wanted, but a memorable one nonetheless.

Photos: Arizona State upsets #7 Arizona Wildcats, Pac-12 basketball