The WSU men’s basketball team could only generate one complete half of basketball which made all the difference in a 84-73 loss on the road at Arizona State.

“We got ourselves in a little bit of a hole obviously in the first half and they (ASU) played well,” WSU Head Coach Ernie Kent said. “We had to fight through some tough calls in and everything but that’s part of being on the road and I thought we made some nice adjustments and went zone, came out in the second half and really played great basketball.”

The Cougars (9-7, 1-3) controlled the tempo of the game early on by outrunning the Sun Devils (11-6, 1-3) in transition which lead to 13-10 lead with 13:53 in the first half.

However, that lead diminished quickly as the Cougars got into foul trouble. With WSU junior forward Josh Hawkinson, redshirt junior guard Que Johnson, and junior guard Charles Callison all sitting on the bench because of foul trouble, Kent had to rely on his bench to keep the Cougars in the game.

Arizona State took advantage of WSU’s foul trouble and went on a 15-0 run over a span of eight minutes and 24 seconds in the first half.

Heading into halftime WSU trailed the Sun Devils by a score 40-25. It seemed as if the Cougars were finished and looking onward to Arizona. Instead the Cougars fought back by opening up the second half on a 10-0 run.

“I think the thing we did at halftime is talked about our defense and felt like we could shut them down and get them to get stagnant in the zone and get them to miss and have the rebounding positioning believe it or not in a zone and then run,” Kent said. “They (ASU) were not a great team in transition.”

Kent added the key to the Cougars’ run was the effort they gave in the half.

WSU junior guard Ike Iroegbu buried a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to five points with 17:32 remaining in the half.

However, this would be the closet WSU would reach as the Sun Devils countered back with a 8-0 run of their own to extend the lead to 48-35 with 15:52 left in the game.

“Made substitutions and it was like we sucked the air out of what was on the floor, but you had to make the substitutions because guys had played so hard to cut it to five,” Kent said. “You needed to give them a breather.”

The Cougars could not contain the hot shooting of ASU sophomore guard Kodi Justice who hit three of seven from 3-point range and tallied 11 points in just the second half. He finished the game with a total of 16 points. WSU also had a hard time stopping ASU sophomore guard Tra Holder who finished with a team high of 20 points.

“Arizona State needed a win very badly,” Kent said. “I thought they battled and played really hard and they got their “w,” and consequently we learned some things but we also made some key mistakes in the game to let it get away from us.”

WSU sophomore guard Derrien King and freshman guard Robert Franks each finished with 11 points in the loss which are career highs for both players.

“We all know how tough it is on the road, but this is a growing experience for this team and we got better believe it or not because Robert Franks came to the party with his game and played fabulous and Derrien King played fabulous,” Kent said.

The Cougars will face No. 18 Arizona Wildcats at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday in Tucson, Ariz. The game will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.

Reporting by Evan Baron