Bobby Hurley didn't mince his words after Arizona State's 75-57 loss on Saturday night.
"The guys, I think they wanted to play, they were juiced about playing because it's been so long," the Sun Devils' head coach said. "We just, we didn't have a lot of gas in the tank in the second half."
The second-half box score reflected that. The Sun Devils scored only 23 points and shot a poor 31% from the field. The team also didn't utilize the free-throw line, which had kept things close in the opening half of action.
Arizona State shot only four free throws in the second half, compared to 11 attempts in the first. That combined with an overall rough day shooting from deep (5-for-21 on three-point attempts) pushed the Sun Devils back into the losing column.
And for a team that has played only two games over the last month, due to COVID-related postponements and cancellations, it seemed the lack of game action caught up to ASU.
The team was dominated on the glass as Colorado was plus-15 in rebound margin. That included 10 offensive boards, which again showed the lack of hustle inside the paint.
"We talked about our rebounding. We knew coming in they were plus-eight per game on the backboard versus their opponents. We knew they could rebound and they got good size at three spots," Hurley said.
Hurley specifically pointed to the Sun Devils' second-half rebounding as an area where the team showed its lack of gas.
"The second half was a total kind of meltdown at that end of the floor," Hurley said.
"With giving up the three-point line, getting way spread out, letting their guards drive us and then not finishing the play when they did miss, by getting the rebound. So we did like a lot of things poor on that end of the floor."
And that can be expected for a group that has had limited practice and barely any games over the past calendar month. Like many teams across the country, COVID has greatly hindered the program. The Sun Devils will need to put that behind them to find their footing as they return to a sense of normalcy.
That will need to happen quickly for Hurley and the team. Arizona State faces three Pac-12 opponents over the next week, including a showdown with fifth-ranked USC on the road.
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