Bobby Hurley expresses disappointment in lack of Arizona State fans at Arizona game

On Saturday, Arizona State fell at home to No. 1 Arizona. After the game, Sun Devils head coach Bobby Hurley called out Arizona State fans for failing to pack the arena.

“Our fans that did show up were vocal. Unfortunately, there were too many red shirts in the arena,” Hurley said. “It was not a home game. It was like a crowd, 50-50, 60-40, either way. It’s hard to say. But, it was loud in there both ways. When they got it going, it was loud. When we had our little spurt, it got loud. I got no real strong opinion on it.”

In fairness, Arizona State hasn’t given its fans much to be excited about the past month and a half. Since Dec. 17, the Sun Devils are 2-9. With their loss on Saturday, the team fell to 2-7 in conference play.

Arizona State didn’t accept defeat against the Wildcats. The Sun Devils had promising flashes and were tied with Arizona at halftime. Nonetheless, Arizona’s depth and overwhelming talent ultimately took its toll on the Sun Devils.

In the loss, Arizona State shot 42% from the field and 33% from beyond the arc. Arizona scored 21 points off the Sun Devils’ turnovers.

ASU sophomore guard Noah Meeusen score a team-high 16 points off the bench, while shooting 4-7 from downtown. He also notched five assists in the loss. While Hurley was relatively happy with his team’s performance, he doesn’t have high hopes for the remainder of the season.

“It’s kind of too late to put things together, I would say,” Hurley said. “But, more or less, we’ve been scrappy. We compete. We’ve beaten Texas, beaten Oklahoma, beat Santa Clara. Close games. Fortunate to win a couple of them. We’ve kind of done as good as we can do.

“… Today we played as good of basketball as this team was probably capable of. Now, we should be able to shoot free throws better. There’s no excuse for that,” Hurley said. “There had to be two or three more rebounds that we should have gotten that we didn’t get. Maybe if you do that, it closes the gap a little. Came close to our ceiling.”

Bobby Hurley’s words may be true, but they’re far from a rallying cry for fans. With ASU’s next two games being on the road, Sun Devils fans will have time to mull over Hurley’s comments.

Arizona State will aim to bounce back from its loss when it squares off against Utah on Wednesday at 7 p.m. MT. The game will air live on CBS Sports Network.