Texas suffers brutal 87-86 defeat by Arizona State in Maui

The shocking upset by the No. 14 seed Abilene Christian Wildcats in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The embarrassing loss to the West Virginia Mountaineers in 2024 in Morgantown.

In the last six seasons of Texas Longhorns basketball, Monday’s last-second, 87-86 defeat by the Arizona State Sun Devils ranked as the second-worst loss in KenPom.com’s rankings. That’s what the numbers say — for anyone who stayed up late to watch the two and a half hour game in the Maui Invitational that featured 49 foul calls that led to 63 free throws, it was spiritually much worse than any numbers could suggest.

That’s because Texas blew a 10-point lead at the under-eight timeout in the second half, a spectacular meltdown caused by a scorching-hot performance by Arizona State point guard Moe Odum, whose game-high 36 points included 13 of the final 21 scored by the Sun Devils in their comeback.

“A lot of times you get into the mid second half and you down 10, it’s easy to lose confidence, lose fight, get out of maybe what they do well, and they did just the opposite — they kept fighting, they made plays, they made plays on defense. Some of our turnovers probably had as much to do with us as them, but I credit them for fighting and making the game back to one possession,” Texas head coach Sean Miller said.

The ASU rally started with Texas twice sending Odum to the free-throw line, allowing the Pepperdine transfer to generate enough rhythm in a game that featured little of it for both teams thanks to the whistle-happy officials to hit three threes down the stretch, including the go-ahead shot with 8.6 seconds remaining.

“He was terrific, too much for us to overcome,” Miller said of Odum.

The inability to defend Odum beyond the three-point line was embarrassing, as the frequent drop coverage employed to protect center Matas Vokietaitis forced the guards and forwards to navigate ball screens without any help, and the inability to defend Odum without fouling was massively frustrating — after entering the game with 10 total free-throw attempts over five games, the Bronx product went 16-of-18 at the line, surpassing his previous career-high of 11 free-throw attempts in a game.

Odum didn’t make his first basket until he’d already taken seven free throws, including three when Texas graduate guard Tramon Mark fouled him on a shot from distance. A little more than 20 seconds later, Odum made a jumper in the paint before closing the half with two big threes to take a five-point lead into halftime.

For first-year head coach Sean Miller, the lack of defensive awareness and execution are both concerning signs almost a month into the season, but not as devastating as how the Longhorns blew the game on offense down the stretch.

Especially against a team with NCAA Tournament odds that jumped to just 2.1 percent after the win, according to BartTorvik.com, losing after hitting 10-of-13 shots from the floor, including six baskets from junior wing Dailyn Swain, is not something that should happen.

But it did because the Longhorns committed six of their season-high 19 turnovers over the final 7:33 after taking the 10-point lead, culminating with Mark falling down and giving the ball away instead, ensuring that Texas was not able to even attempt a go-ahead shot after Odum’s decisive three.

It was a questionable decision by Miller with Swain getting into the paint at will throughout game in finishing with a team-high 24 points on 10-of-14 shooting, but perhaps rationalized by the fact that Swain had taken a foul in transition with 22 seconds remaining and a two-point lead instead of passing to one of several open teammates for an easy finish, then missing both free throws.

A little more than a minute earlier, senior guard Jordan Pope inexplicably missed an open shot the rim, which came a minute after junior guard Simeon Wilcher was called for an offensive foul, disqualifying him from the game after representing his team-high fifth turnover.

With Pope going 2-of-6 shooting from three and failing to get to the free-throw line and Mark finishing minus-12 with four fouls, Miller simply isn’t getting consistently effective play from his guards, all the more disappointing considering their collective experience.

It was also an up-and-down performance for Vokietaitis, who scored 15 points and was efficient from the floor (5-of-9) and the free-throw line (5-of-7) while adding eight rebounds in finishing a team-best plus-14, but he was also called for three fouls, committed four turnovers, and may not be mobile enough to allow Miller to play anything but drop coverage with Vokietaitis on pick and rolls, a disturbing prospect considering the extent to which that coverage contributed to Arizona State hitting at 50 percent from three.

Miller called the 19 turnovers by Texas one of the storylines of the game.

“It’s tough to win against good teams on a neutral court when you have 19 turnovers,” Miller said.

It’s also tough to win against mediocre teams in those circumstances, as the Longhorns found out on Monday.

In addition to mentioning the turnovers, the Texas head coach made a point to bring up the officiating.

“The other thing, and again, I’m anxious to watch the game — we had 28 personal fouls. That’s insane,” Miller said, impacted by a willingness from the officials to call a foul on the baseline from halfcourt.

“Arizona State, they put you in a position to guard the dribble and they got into the paint and they were able to draw fouls from the three officials. If one guy didn’t catch it on the baseline and the other guy maybe didn’t catch it on the wing, the guy at half court damn sure caught it,” Miller said.

“We have to play better defense without fouling.”

Miller has been careful minimize early expectations for this team, in part because of some preseason injury setbacks, placing an emphasis on gradual improvement, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Texas didn’t perform like an NCAA Tournament in the decisive moments against Arizona State on Monday.

By the time the Horns head back to Austin, they will only have five non-conference games remaining before SEC play, increasing the importance of the final two games in Maui because of the increased need to avoid any more resume-destroying losses and because of the increased need to prove they can execute better on both ends of the court.

Heading to the consolation bracket, Texas faces host Chaminade on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. Central on ESPN2 with the winner advancing to the third-place game on Wednesday.