Utah recently fired its head coach and Arizona State may consider dismissing its leader.
The common factor is both teams are experiencing mediocre seasons when the Sun Devils face the Utes on Saturday night in Big 12 play at Salt Lake City.
Utah (15-13, 7-10 Big 12) fired fourth-year coach Craig Smith on Monday and delegated Josh Eilert to serve as interim coach for the remainder of the season. The results were familiar in Eilert’s debut Wednesday as the Utes lost 83-66 at No. 22 Arizona.
Arizona State (13-15, 4-13) will have to consider what to do regarding 10th-year coach Bobby Hurley after a season that has spiraled out of control with 12 setbacks in the past 15 games. The Sun Devils lost 91-81 Wednesday at home against BYU.
Arizona State played just seven players against BYU and was severely short-handed after the recent departure of leading scorer BJ Freeman (13.7 points per game) and the absences of Alston Mason (illness) and Jayden Quaintance (knee injury).
Hurley is perplexed over the personnel issues.
“The universe is talking to me about something right now to me and I don’t what it is,” Hurley said. “I’m scared to wake up. I hope I wake up tomorrow. I think I will, I hope I will, but I’m scared to see what tomorrow brings.”
Utah has dropped four of its last six games but sports a 14-3 home mark.
Eilert isn’t new to being an interim coach. He served in that role at West Virginia last season when the Mountaineers went 9-23.
He addressed the situation with the players as he’s aware he’s not the reason any of them decided to become Utes.
“I just told the guys in there that I didn’t recruit these guys,” Eilert said. “They didn’t choose to play for me. They came here to play for somebody else. So the situation they’ve had to deal with the last couple days and how they responded is (they’re) ultimate professionals.
“It just shows that what kind of kids are representing this program, and I’m really proud of the way (they’ve handled it).”
One player who fared well against Arizona was backup Keanu Dawes, who had a season-high 18 points along with 10 rebounds for his third double-double of the season.
Gabe Madsen leads Utah with a 15.6 scoring average. With Freeman gone, Mason (12.7 ppg) serves Arizona State’s top scorer.
The Sun Devils have won seven of the past nine meetings — all coming as members of the Pac-12.
–Field Level Media
