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It’s five and counting for the Arizona State men’s basketball team.

That’s losses, the worst losing streak in coach Bobby Hurley’s seven years. And the going won’t get any easier as the Sun Devils (4-7, 1-4) head south to face rival Arizona (11-3, 5-3) at 9 p.m. Monday night at the McKale Center in a game televised by ESPN2.

The teams just played on Thursday and it was the Wildcats winning 84-82 on a put back at the buzzer, moments after Remy Martin’s layup attempt missed.

Hurley wanted a foul on the play and was adamant about that in his post-game comments, so much so that he was reprimanded by the Pac-12. Debate aside on whether there was or wasn’t a foul, it was just the latest case of the Sun Devils not being able to close out a game. Make one more play and it might not have come down to that call.

The last four losses have been by a combined 18 points with one in overtime. Against the Wildcats on Thursday ASU had a five-point lead but failed to score for the last 2:22 with two missed shots (no offensive rebounds), a turnover and two personal fouls down the rest of the way.

The Sun Devils had an abysmal first half that included 12 turnovers and a 3-for-8 showing at the line but turned it around in a second half in which they scored 52 points.

“It’s been a tough go. We’ve had these games that we just haven’t closed. We’ve been shorthanded, we haven’t had players. I think this is more of what my vision was for our team this year having the players that we have on the court tonight and doing some of the things we were able to do,” Hurley said after that game. “We did that after having a stretch of not playing great offense in the first half.”

The Sun Devils have yet to play a game with their full complement of players and likely won’t with junior forward Taeshon Cherry out of the mix indefinitely. Eight players have missed multiple games and the Sun Devils played both Los Angeles rivals without four players, two of them starters.

The bright spot on Thursday was the showing of sophomore forward Jalen Graham, who played for the first time in more than month and finished with 10 points, three blocks and two steals in 25 minutes. The Mountain Pointe product had been out with mononucleosis.

“Pleased with (sophomore forward) Jalen Graham. He’s had very limited time on the court, limited practice. To step up and play the game he played after being out for several weeks,” Hurley said. “I thought (freshman guard) Josh Christopher really did some fantastic things on offense. He made big shots, beautiful drive to the basket in the second half. Happy about those things but that’s really all I got.”

One place the Sun Devils limited the damage was on the boards. Going into the game Arizona was a plus-9 in rebounding margin while ASU was a minus-9. The Wildcats only finished with a 35-33 advantage there but one of those was huge with the winning shot at the buzzer coming on a put back by 6-foot-11 freshman Azuolas Tubelis when ASU had no one crashing the boards.

The Sun Devils had no answer for Wildcats guard James Akinjo who tallied a game-high 24 points that included five 3-pointers. Arizona was 11-for-20 from long distance, hitting 7 of 11 in the first half. Terrell Brown contributed 14 points and snagged five rebounds.

Martin and Christopher each had 18 for the Sun Devils with Martin netting 15 of his in the second half, in rallying ASU from an 11-point first half deficit.

Monday’s game will also mark a stretch of five games in 11 days for the Sun Devils who will host California (7-10, 2-8) on Thursday and Stanford (9-5, 5-3) on Saturday.

“We just got to get a win and just start rallying again,” Christopher said. “It’s no panic, it’s basketball at the end of the day. We’ve all been playing basketball for a long time, it wasn’t supposed to be easy. It’s not going to be easy so we just got to keep on battling, keep fighting and push through.”

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602 444-4783.  Follow her on Twitter @MGardnerSports.

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