Kansas Vs Arizona State: In Tempe, a Test of Toughness After a Trip That Turned
TEMPE, Ariz. — The hotel hallway was quiet Monday, the kind of calm that makes every basketball thought sound louder. Kansas Vs Arizona State is next on the schedule Tuesday night, and for the Jayhawks, the assignment is less about geography than response: toughness, focus, and whether the next game can look different from the last.
What is at stake in Kansas Vs Arizona State after the Arizona loss?
Saturday’s loss to Arizona left Kansas searching for a sturdier edge. KU guard Melvin Council Jr., who finished with 13 points and four assists, pointed to one area that has to change: toughness.
“We can’t back down from nobody, ” Council said. “We can’t take shortcuts when we got the lead, when we cut the lead down. We got to keep playing. ”
The Arizona game swung hard. Kansas was in danger early, fought back to make it a two-point deficit, and then watched Arizona’s Ivan Kharchenkov hit a 3-pointer that reopened the gap. Head coach Bill Self said Kansas made the task tougher than it needed to be.
“That would be a ridiculously hard game regardless, but we certainly made it harder on ourselves, ” Self said, “because we didn’t do the things that I felt like we did the first time we played them and competed at the same level. ”
Now Kansas stays in Arizona, turning northwest to Tempe for Tuesday night, where Self said the group’s mood had steadied.
“It’s been actually a pretty good trip if you take away from about 2 p. m. to about 4 p. m. Saturday, ” Self told a small group of reporters at the team hotel in Tempe on Monday, “but I thought our guys’ attitudes and everything was really good today. ”
Why does Arizona State keep catching teams right after they face Arizona?
The Big 12’s road-trip sequencing has created a pattern: teams coming off games against Arizona have struggled in their next outing. This season, teams that have just faced Arizona are 4-11 in the following game.
Arizona State has been a major beneficiary of that reality. Four of the 11 losses in those immediate follow-up games have come against the Sun Devils—losses by Cincinnati, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech. Put simply, four of Arizona State’s six league wins have come against opponents whose most recent game was against Arizona. The other two league wins are against Utah, which sits last in the Big 12.
For Kansas, that statistic is not destiny, but it is context: the challenge is not only the opponent, but also the emotional and physical hangover that can follow a demanding matchup. Kansas Vs Arizona State, in that sense, is a check on habits—whether Kansas can carry effort forward without the dips that defined Saturday.
Who is rising for Arizona State, and what does Kansas have to solve?
Arizona State did not open league play well, but the Sun Devils have found traction late. They have won four of their last six games and did not lose at Desert Financial Arena in the month of February. Saturday offered another snapshot of their resilience: a 73-60 home win over Utah in which they fell behind 14-5 early, then outscored the Utes 29-10 for the rest of the first half.
Several performances stood out. Moe Odum scored 15 points and hit three 3s. Freshman center Massamba Diop added 14 points, including a couple 3s. Anthony “Pig” Johnson scored 13 off the bench. Santiago Trouet posted a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double.
Odum is Arizona State’s top overall scorer, averaging 17. 9 points in league play while shooting 40. 5% from deep. Johnson, an addition from the University of the Cumberlands, has emerged as a strong driver and typically fills a sixth-man role—partly because Arizona State has leaned into a bigger lineup featuring Trouet and Andrija Grbović.
Diop, meanwhile, represents a particular kind of modern problem: size with skill. He has attempted 16 3-pointers this year, and while he has made only four, Self emphasized the rest of Diop’s offensive profile and the complications that come with his length and mobility.
“You know, he’s pretty good in the short roll, he’s pretty good facing the basket, ” Self said. “He can make a shot, I think he’s only made four on the year, 3s, but he’s really good in that 15- to 17-foot range, and he’s so long. He almost plays like a four-man that’s playing the five, as far as away from the basket. ”
That blend—Odum’s perimeter output, Johnson’s downhill pressure, and a front line that can change the geometry of a possession—sets the questions Kansas must answer. Can Kansas sustain the kind of competing Self said was missing in stretches against Arizona? Can it keep playing through the moment it cuts a deficit or gains momentum, rather than searching for shortcuts?
Tuesday night in Tempe, those questions do not have to be dramatic to be decisive. Sometimes a road trip turns on smaller things: a defensive stand that doesn’t break, an offensive possession that doesn’t drift, a team that keeps playing when it wants to exhale. Kansas Vs Arizona State will be played in an arena where Arizona State has recently protected its home floor, and where Kansas arrives carrying both the sting of Saturday and the chance to show what it learned.
Image caption (alt text): Kansas Vs Arizona State as KU prepares in Tempe for Tuesday night’s road finale at Desert Financial Arena.
