The 2025-26 Arizona State men's basketball season ended rather fittingly on Wednesday.
After a rather convincing 83-79 win over Baylor in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, ASU became the sacrificial lamb for the Iowa State Cyclones in round two. The Sun Devils limped away having been whipped 91-42 in Kansas City and now return to Tempe licking their wounds for the offseason.
Iowa State DESTROYS Arizona State 91-42 to move on to the 3rd round of the Big 12 Tournament 🌀 pic.twitter.com/7iHwXjCcWh
— The College Sports Company (@CollegeSportsCo) March 11, 2026
It was a mirror opposite effort of what the team put into its first half performance against ISU just Saturday, where head coach Bobby Hurley's boys claimed a surprising 41-37 halftime lead. That eventually evaporated for a somewhat competitive 86-65 final score.
On Wednesday, Iowa State led 45-16 after 20 minutes. It was an eye-popping margin that resulted in a history-making result.
Arizona State's tournament loss made the wrong kind of history
The Cyclones' 49-point victory was the largest margin in Big 12 Tournament history, according to ESPN. It beat Texas' 43-point win over Colorado in the 2000 edition of the conference bracket (78-35).
Wednesday's loss was also the second-worst in Arizona State men's basketball history. Only a 50-point defeat to Texas Tech all the way back in 1956 was more painful for the Devils. Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States, Elvis Presley topped the country's musical charts and ASU technically wouldn't be ASU for another two years.
It was also the first time a Big 12 team failed to reach 50-points in a conference tournament game since, ironically, the Cyclones took down No. 1 seed Houston 69-41 in the 2024 championship game.
Hurley, whose contract with the university expired as of the end of the season, was informed by athletic director Graham Rossini that he would not be brought back for the 2026-27 campaign. He spent 11 seasons coaching the Devils and finished with a 185-167 record.
Hurley definitely went out with a bang, just not the kind ASU fans were hoping for. The team now turns its focus to what can only be presumed to be a thorough coaching search.