This wasn’t the start Arizona State wanted to open the Bobby Hurley era.
The Sun Devils started flat, coughed up a 10-point second-half lead and fell 66-63 to Sacramento State in Friday night’s season opener at Wells Fargo Arena.
Even though they had six weeks of preseason practice, the Sun Devils looked like a team playing its first game with a new coaching staff. They looked tentative, thinking more than reacting. They struggled against a 1-3-1 zone. They gave up too much ball penetration.
They failed to close out a team coaches picked to finish 10th in this season’s Big Sky conference.