In mid-December, Arizona State men’s basketball sat at 9-2 following a comeback win over current at-large hopeful Santa Clara.

Now, the Sun Devils find themselves right at .500 and virtually eliminated from tournament contention barring a magical run at the Big 12 Tournament in March.

So, where did it go wrong for head coach Bobby Hurley and ASU?

The obvious answer is a 78-75 home loss to Oregon State, a Quad Four team currently seventh in the West Coast Conference standings.

However, there’s another underlying issue continuingto fuel the Sun Devils’ downfall: the road.

ASU is 1-5 on the road this season and yet to win a Big 12 game away from Desert Financial Arena. The Sun Devils’ lone road win came all the way back in November, when they took down Hawai’i 83-76.

As with many of its losses this year, ASU’s defense hasn’t been ideal outside Tempe. 

In their six road contests, the Sun Devils are surrendering 90.2 points per game, with that number ballooning to 93.8 in Big 12 play.

However, the schedule hasn’t been kind to ASU, having faced three top 10 teams – No. 9 BYU, No. 1 Arizona and No. 7 Houston – on the road already, with the fourth and most recent road outing coming against a tough UCF team.

This week, ASU travels north to face two former Pac-12 members that have also struggled to find success on the court in the Big 12. The Sun Devils take on Utah in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 4, before heading to Boulder for a rematch with Colorado on Saturday, Feb. 7.

After firing Craig Smith late in the season last year, first-year head coach Alex Jensen and the Utes have struggled mightily, currently 1-7 and below ASU in Big 12 play.

Similar to the Sun Devils, Utah’s defense is a problem, allowing the most points per game in the conference at 81 ½. 

Yet the two squads share another weakness: rebounding. Utah ranks 15th with 34.6 rebounds per game, while ASU ranks last at 33 rebounds per game.

Even though the Utes haven’t had a dream season by any means, they still feature one of the top scorers in college basketball in junior guard Terrence Brown. The Fairleigh Dickinson transfer averages 22.1 points per game, good for third in the Big 12 and eighth in the nation, and currently rides a four-game streak of 20-plus points.

This season, ASU already faced the two players ahead of Brown: BYU freshman forward AJ Dybantsa and Kansas State junior guard PJ Haggerty. The Sun Devils struggled to contain both, as Dybantsa and Haggerty finished with 23 and 25 points against ASU, respectively.

As for Saturday’s matchup in Boulder, the Buffaloes look to sweep the Sun Devils for the first time since the 2019-20 campaign. Colorado prevailed 95-89 in the first meeting in Tempe on Jan. 3

In that win, the Buffaloes had four different players in double figures, with freshman guard Isaiah Johnson leading the charge with 19.

It was also another case of ASU having issues on the boards, as Colorado outrebounded the Sun Devils 42-32. 

Since then, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the Buffaloes, as they hit a rough patch and lost six in a row before breaking the skid with a surprise 87-61 blowout win over TCU on Sunday, Feb. 1.

Alongside Johnson, junior guard Barrington Hargress is in a groove as of late, putting up 10-plus points and 3-plus assists in seven straight games.

All in all, these are two winnable games for the Sun Devils, who desperately need to get back in the win column away from home.