Key Arizona State player ejected for arguing with official in TCU game

The Arizona State men's basketball team has a problem.

For the third time in the last five games, an Arizona State player has been ejected from a Big 12 basketball game.

With 16:37 left in the second half of the Sun Devils home game vs. TCU on Saturday night, ASU senior guard Adam Miller was whistled for a foul. Miller did not like the call and had some choice words for official Kipp Kissinger. Miller was immediately assessed two technical fouls and ejected from the game.

Arizona State trailed 41-37 at the time of the ejection and Miller exited the game with 4 points and 3 steals. He came into the game averaging 10.8 points.

It's the second time Miller has been ejected in his past three games. During Arizona State's 71-70 loss to Kansas State on Feb. 4, Miller was issued a flagrant 2 technical foul by official Tony Padilla with 7:34 left and ejected from the game. Miller got into an altercation with Kansas State guard Dug McDaniel right in front of Padilla.

Miller's technical was ruled a "flagrant 2 fighting technical" which is an automatic one-game suspension per NCAA rules. Miller was suspended for Arizona State's 86-73 loss at Oklahoma State on Feb. 9.

The Sun Devils were already shorthanded without injured freshman forward Jayden Quaintance, who is sidelined for "several" games with an ankle injury.

Arizona State (12-12, 3-10) went into Saturday's game riding a four-game losing streak. The Sun Devils are in second-to-last place in the Big 12 and coach Bobby Hurley is on the hot seat.

In an interview with Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo last week, Arizona State athletic director Graham Rossini made it clear he expects Arizona State to make the NCAA tournament.

“It’s an expectation. It's not a goal. It’s kind of one of those minimum requirements that we want to have tournament teams certainly in basketball, but in all of our sports,” Rossini told Burns and Gambo. “It’s my responsibility to look throughout the organization and figure out what are the pieces that we need to tweak and adjust and add to in order to have that kind of success. We’re not in this for participation trophies, we’re in this to win championships."