Who needs defense? Arizona outlasts ASU 113-100 in wild McKale Center season finale

The emotion of Senior Night, and the tension of another Arizona-ASU matchup that on Tuesday produced three technical fouls, 43 personal fouls and 70 free throws, can make it all seem like a lot to process.

But the math is still the same, the way UA coach Tommy Lloyd looks at it: You just need to score more than the other guys.

So while giving up 100 points to the shorthanded Sun Devils on Tuesday night, Arizona threw in 113 of its own. It was the most points the Wildcats had scored since their 2023-24 opener against Morgan State, when they won 122-59, and Tuesday’s game was also the first UA-ASU matchup in which both teams scored in triple digits since 1973.

“If you (get) 95, you better not give up more than 94,” Lloyd said, referring to the fact that the Wildcats did just that 10 days earlier at McKale, losing to BYU 96-95. “It’s not more complicated than that.”

While the loss to BYU threw the Wildcats out of the Big 12 title race, Tuesday’s win at least clinched a double-bye in the Big 12 Tournament for the Wildcats, who are now assured of not having to play until March 13 in the quarterfinals.

Arizona’s win also moved the Wildcats to 20-10 overall and 14-5 in the Big 12, where they are in a loss-column tie with Texas Tech for second place heading into their regular season finale at Kansas on Saturday. The Red Raiders are scheduled to host Colorado on Wednesday.

ASU, meanwhile, dropped to 13-17 overall and 4-15 with a shorthanded roster that, coach Bobby Hurley indicated, was compromised defensively.

With a core of just six scholarship players for most of the game, Hurley said he couldn’t afford to have his guys extend themselves defensively, for fear of picking up fouls that would send them out of the game.

As it was, ASU starters Basheer Jihad and Shawn Phillips both fouled out, while Hurley was prompted to play his walk-son 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.

All that may have helped the Wildcats shoot 58.0% from the floor, while they also hit 31 of 39 free throws and committed only six turnovers, the fewest they have had all season.

ASU shot 46.3% and hit 26 of 31 free throws – while the Sun Devils turned the ball over only four times.

“I think it was just the lack of turnovers,” Lloyd said of the high scores on both sides. “Neither team turned the ball over, and both shot the ball pretty well and shot a lot of free throws, and that makes for a high scoring game."

Neither team’s defense was at its best, either, of course. While ASU backed away defensively, the Wildcats allowed ASU to hit 12 of 23 3-pointers to stay in the game, an effort somewhat reminiscent of how Iowa State went 11 for 21 on Saturday against the Wildcats – and how BYU went 14 of 31 from 3 on Feb. 22 at McKale in that 96-95 game.

UA center Tobe Awaka said part of UA's problem Tuesday 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.

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"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.”

ASU guard Alston Mason did the most damage against the Wildcats, hitting 5 of 7 3-pointers while totaling a game-high 33 points. Former UA commit Joson Sanon, who flipped to the Sun Devils after Caleb Love returned to the Wildcats late last spring, added 19 points while fellow freshman Amier Ali hit 3 of 5 3s. Even Best hit 2 of 4 from long range.

But the Wildcats, again, had plenty of their own scorers, three of whom surpassed 20 points. Henri Veesaar set a career high with 22 points and KJ Lewis tied his career high with 21. Love also had 21 points while Awaka had 15 points and nine rebounds.

While UA led 55-47 at halftime and by up to 14 points in the second half, the Sun Devils often pulled within a possession or two by hitting 3s. They gave the Wildcats their last scare with 6:12 to go, when Mason hit a 3-pointer to cut UA’s lead to just 89-86.

But the Wildcats followed that with an 8-0 run that featured a layup and two free throws from Lewis and, perhaps more importantly, foul outs to both Jihad (with 5:12 to go) and Phillips (3:59) of ASU.

Phillips was called for the game’s third technical foul after being called for a foul on Lewis with four minutes left. That allowed Love to hit one of two free throws, while Lewis hit both of his free throws.

In the first half, Hurley and UA guard Jaden Bradley were both assessed technicals for disagreeing with officials. Hurley had picked up a similar technical against UA in Tempe on Feb. 1, when Bradley also picked up one for a gesture to the ASU bench – and when both Love and then-ASU guard B.J. Freeman were ejected near the end of the game after Freeman head-butted Love.

Freeman has since been dismissed, so he wasn’t around Tuesday, while Lloyd said the Wildcats handled their emotions better than they did in Tempe.

“I talked to our guys about being classy and understanding that it's not about showing someone up, or anything like that,” Lloyd said. “Listen: Jaden is such a classy, quiet guy that if he's complaining to an official in a way that the official feels he should T him up, my assumption is he probably got fouled. Now, I have not seen the play, so that's just me knowing JB the way I know him, but it happens. It’s an emotional game.”

The emotion started before the game, when UA’s six seniors trotted through the Zona Zoo student section and made their way to center court to join Lloyd and their families for senior celebrations.

Lloyd wound up putting one of those seniors back in the starting lineup, forward Trey Townsend, though he opted not to start any of his four senior walk-ons in part because he said they didn’t want to with so much on the line.

"They said 'Hell, no,'" Lloyd told the McKale Center crowd afterward, when he and his seniors briefly took the mic.

Townsend responded by scoring seven of his eight points in the first half, including a corner 3-pointer, though the Wildcats’ most efficient players weren’t seniors: Veesaar scored his 22 points on 8 for 12 shooting, Lewis was 7 for 13 and Bradley had just 12 points but didn’t miss any of the four field goals or any of the four free throws he took.

They just kept scoring. Just enough for the Wildcats this time.

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