ASU Basketball: Sun Devils suffer first loss of the year against Texas Southern 67-66 in overtime

No team in NCAA Division I college basketball since 1976 has completed an undefeated season. The 2022-2023 Arizona State Sun Devils will not be the ones to break that streak.

On the first road trip of the season, the Sun Devils (2-1) went down I-10 East and fell in a crushing overtime loss to Texas Southern (1-2) by a final score of 67-66.

There were plenty of chances for the Sun Devils to get out of Houston victorious on Sunday. Aside from holding a 51-39 lead 12 minutes through the second half, the Tigers shot an abysmal 7-for-19 from the free throw line. Even with the huge lead and TSU’s struggles from the line, Arizona State still couldn’t manage to get it done.

After taking a 12-point lead with just under eight minutes to play, the Sun Devil offense went cold, allowing Texas Southern to embark on a 10-0 run for the next 4+ minutes before the next ASU score. This stretch in particular highlighted the lid on the rim for Arizona State, who shot 34% from the field in this game while converting on just five of 23 attempts from beyond the arc.

DJ Horne particularly had the most trouble putting the ball in the hoop, going 3-12 in his first game since netting a career-high of 225 against NAU.

While the Sun Devils maintained the lead down the stretch, A three-pointer by the Tigers’ PJ Henry with 30 seconds left tied the score at 57, marking 20 points for the hometown senior.

Even with Henry’s heroics, the Sun Devils were given a reprieve when Zytarious Mortle missed the front end of a one-and-one with five seconds left to keep the game tied and force overtime. After going down by four in the extra session, Frankie Collins willed the team back into the game with an and-one lay-in followed by a jumper to give ASU a 64-63 lead with just under a minute to play. Following a TSU jumper, Collins came back down and knocked down two free throws for his 22nd and 23rd points of the day as well as a 66-65 advantage with 30 ticks to go.

On the ensuing possession, the Tigers would secure back-to-back offensive rebounds before a Mortle tip-in with five seconds on the clock. Electing not to take a timeout, Bobby Hurley let Frankie Collins hurry the ball up before he dribbled the ball off of a defender’s foot, sending it loose as time expired.

With Marcus Bagley out due to a hard fall on Thursday against NAU that caused a hip pointer, this game mirrored a handful of contests the Sun Devils fell in last year. With their star man out, inconsistent scoring, and inability to close games out, Arizona State fell victim to the upset bug. Their usual prowess on the glass, which allowed them to escape in the season opener against Tarleton State, even slipped out for Bobby Hurley’s squad on the road. Texas Southern outrebounded Arizona State 16-10 on the offensive glass and 50-41 overall, including several key boards late in the game to gain extra possessions.

The Sun Devils will look to re-establish their rebounding presence while improving their own shooting percentages by Wednesday when they will face off with VCU in the first round of the Legends Classic in Brooklyn.