Caleb Love finished with 27 points, including 18 in the second half, before he was ejected along with Arizona State’s BJ Freeman in the waning seconds of Arizona’s 81-72 victory Saturday at Tempe, Ariz.
Love and Freeman were ejected with 30 seconds left after Freeman head-butted Love when they engaged in a verbal exchange.
Arizona State (12-9, 3-7 Big 12) coach Bobby Hurley waved his team to get off the floor before the final buzzer sounded and elected not to shake the hand of Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd after the game.
Arizona (15-6, 9-1) took a 76-69 lead with 2:36 left on Love’s 3-pointer, but Freeman answered with a shot beyond the arc on the other end.
A lob from Love to Henri Veesaar under the basket resulted in a Veesaar layup to give Arizona a 78-72 lead with 1:22 remaining.
Freeman, who led Arizona State with 19 points, then missed a 3-pointer that was blocked by Love.
Jaden Bradley’s layup closed out the scoring.
Bradley finished with 14 points and Veesaar added 11 points and six rebounds off the bench. Carter Bryant contributed eight points and 10 rebounds for the Wildcats.
Adam Miller finished with 16 points for Arizona State and Basheer Jihad added 14 points and seven rebounds.
The game had 11 lead changes and six ties.
The intense back-and-forth was compounded by technical fouls on Hurley for arguing a foul call and Bradley for taunting in the first half.
Arizona took the biggest lead of the first half of 17-9 with 10:38 left following a 9-3 run.
Arizona State answered with a 9-0 run with all the points scored by Freeman, on a 3-point play and two shots from beyond the arc.
The Sun Devils led 29-25 with 1:57 left in the half following a jump shot by Jayden Quaintance. Arizona was in the midst of a 2-of-17 stretch from field at that time.
A 3-pointer by reserve point guard Conrad Martinez fueled Arizona outscoring Arizona State 10-5 down the stretch, enabling Arizona to take a 35-34 lead.
Miller opened the second half with a 3-pointer and Jihad scored seven consecutive points for the Sun Devils, leading them to a 44-39 lead with 17:21 left.
Arizona took a 58-52 lead following a 10-3 run, but Arizona State answered with an 8-2 stretch to tie the game at 60 with 9:10 remaining.
–Field Level Media
