Arizona not favored against ASU for second consecutive meeting

With the Arizona Wildcats’ season teetering on the brink of disaster, Thursday night’s trip to Tempe could serve as their breaking point. It will also provide Arizona’s largest point spread as an underdog in Pac-12 play in more than two years.

Arizona has opened as a five-point dog at the Arizona State Sun Devils, according to OddsShark.

It’s the third consecutive game Arizona (14-7, 5-3 Pac-12) has not been favored, something that hadn’t happened since the 2009-10 season. Then again, the Wildcats hadn’t lost back-to-back games by 20 or more points since 1982-83 before falling 80-57 at USC and 90-69 at UCLA last weekend.

Arizona’s last time being such a large underdog in Pac-12 play came on Jan. 21, 2017, when it closed as a 5.5-point dog at UCLA. That was when Allonzo Trier made his season debut after missing the first 19 games because of a failed drug test and came off the bench in the Wildcats’ 96-85 victory.

ASU (14-6, 5-3) is favored against the Wildcats for only the fourth time in Sean Miller’s tenure, the first two coming in his first season in 2009-10. The other was last February, when Arizona won 77-70 at ASU as one-point underdogs.

The last time ASU was this large a favorite was Jan. 23, 2010, in Tempe, when Arizona cruised to a 77-58 win despite being 11-point underdogs. That’s one of just three games the Wildcats have won straight up as a double-digit dog since 1997, the others coming in 2001 (71-67 over 11-point favorite Maryland in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at Madison Square Garden) and 1997 (85-82 over Kansas in the Sweet 16 en route to their NCAA title).

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