For 30 minutes in Tucson on Saturday afternoon, an overmatched Arizona State men’s basketball team boxed No. 3 Arizona into the Sun Devils’ style of basketball.
It’s a primal way to play the game. Elbows out, bodies flying and intense pressure. Completely unpolished and entirely admirable. It’s guerrilla-style tactics played out on a 94-foot-long hardwood court.
And for 30 minutes, Arizona was in serious danger of succumbing to one of the biggest upsets in the history of the rivalry. For a team that has been so dominant at scoring inside all season, the Wildcats struggled to find anything easy as the Sun Devils padlocked the paint.