UA-ASU pregame: Sean Miller says he has same approach this week

There’s always an evenness to Sean Miller before games, and this week was no exception.

Miller wouldn’t bite on all the Bobby Hurley talk, instead backing the ASU coach for his "bleeping Tucson" postgame speech by saying it was a “classic example” of a misunderstanding a behind-the-scenes activity.

He also didn’t pause when answering a question about whether anything is different this week leading up to tonight's UA-ASU game (7 p.m., ESPN2, with Walton and Pasch).

“No,” he said. “No. 1, this is a conference game. You have nine home (conference) games and you want to be at your best. Winning on the road is not easy in conference play. Some of the best teame we have ever had here went through this conference getting road splits and then home sweeps and at the end those teams were right there at the end to win the championship.

“That’s what it starts with and everybody knows that playing Arizona State is big for our fans, our students and it has great meaning to both sides. We know that.”

The way the Republic's Doug Haller explained it in a feature on Hurley, the ASU coach's postgame speech was about trying to get his players to realize how important it is to protect homecourt – especially considering that most Pac-12 teams head into the Arizona road swing thinking they probably won’t win at McKale Center, so they’ll be dead-set on beating the Sun Devils at Wells Fargo in order to at least get a split.

While Hurley says the Sun Devils have “a long way to go” before being good enough to form a true rivalry with UA, Republic columnist Paola Boivin noted that Herb Sendek had “more success than most” against the Wildcats.

Our coverage is attached to this post, and here's the official notes from Arizona, ASU and the Pac-12.

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T.J. McConnell was building to that game-winning shot, according to Philly.com feature. (SportsCenter made McConnell's celebration the photo of the night).

UCLA could make a case for No. 1 if it can get through the mountains this weekend, starting at Boulder (9 p.m., FS1).

Jordan McLaughlin and USC are bracing for altitude at Utah, too. (7 p.m., Pac-12 Networks).

Couple of other Pac-12 games tonight in the Bay area:

Washington at Cal, 7 p.m., FS1

WSU at Stanford, 8 p.m., Pac-12 Networks