photo by: AP Photo/Rick Scuteri

Kansas guard Melvin Council Jr. drives past Arizona guard Anthony Dell'Orso during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, in Tucson, Ariz.

TEMPE, Ariz. — After Kansas lost to Arizona on Saturday, in a game that verged on a blowout early before KU came back only to get blown out again, KU guard Melvin Council Jr. said the biggest area in which the Jayhawks need to improve is their toughness.

“We can’t back down from nobody,” said Council, who had 13 points and four assists in the loss. “We can’t take shortcuts when we got the lead, when we cut the lead down. We got to keep playing.”

The Jayhawks couldn’t quite manage that in the midst of Saturday’s matchup, when they worked incredibly hard just to get their deficit to two points before a 3-pointer by Arizona’s Ivan Kharchenkov broke the game back open.

“That would be a ridiculously hard game regardless, but we certainly made it harder on ourselves,” head coach Bill Self said, “because we didn’t do the things that I felt like we did the first time we played them and competed at the same level.”

Now they’ll need to demonstrate a different type of toughness and renewed focus that not many teams have mustered this year as they remain in Arizona and travel northwest to take on Arizona State on Tuesday night.

“It’s been actually a pretty good trip if you take away from about 2 p.m. to about 4 p.m. Saturday,” Self told a small group of reporters at the team hotel in Tempe on Monday, “but I thought our guys’ attitudes and everything was really good today.”

Teams that have just faced Arizona have gone 4-11 in their following games this year. In large part due to the way the Big 12 schedules these road trips, four of those 11 ensuing losses — losses by Cincinnati, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech — have come against ASU.

In other words, four of the Sun Devils’ six league wins this season have come against teams that have most recently played against the Wildcats. (The other two are against Utah, which is currently last in the Big 12.)

ASU did not start league play well in what certainly appears to be its final season under head coach Bobby Hurley — his contract is up at the end of the year — but the Sun Devils are on a bit of an uptick with four wins in their last six games and did not lose at Desert Financial Arena in the month of February. They completed the season sweep against Utah on Saturday with a 73-60 home win in which they fell behind 14-5 early and proceeded to outscore the Utes 29-10 for the remainder of the first half. Moe Odum scored 15 points with three 3s, freshman center Massamba Diop added 14 with a couple 3s of his own, Anthony “Pig” Johnson posted 13 off the bench and Santiago Trouet had a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double.

That has in some ways been the formula for the Sun Devils, although Diop has only attempted 16 3-pointers this year. He does have a solid shooting touch and uncommon fluidity for a 7-footer, even if he is more often a lob finisher and rim protector.

“You know, he’s pretty good in the short roll, he’s pretty good facing the basket,” Self said. “He can make a shot, I think he’s only made four on the year, 3s, but he’s really good in that 15- to 17-foot range, and he’s so long. He almost plays like a four-man that’s playing the five, as far as away from the basket.”

ASU’s top overall scorer is Odum, at 17.9 points and 40.5% shooting from deep in league play. Johnson, an unlikely addition from the University of the Cumberlands, is a strong driver who usually serves as the sixth man. That’s in part because the Sun Devils have been playing a big lineup with Trouet and Andrija Grbović, both 6-foot-11, alongside Diop, and one guard with Odum in the backcourt.

“They score the ball pretty easy,” Self said. “They got a point guard that can really score. They’ve got some size. What is (Diop), 7-1 standing height? Their personnel’s good, and if I’m not mistaken, (they) won five of the last six at home … and they played Arizona tough in the game they didn’t win. They’ve definitely played well at home and beaten some good teams.”

Self said that when Arizona put Saturday’s game out of hand his focus shifted to resting players ahead of Tuesday. The Jayhawks will hope those extra minutes off benefit the likes of Council and Darryn Peterson, who played one of his most complete games against the Wildcats, but they’ll also need a much tougher performance from their post players to deliver a road win on Tuesday night.

ARIZONA STATE SUN DEVILS (15-14, 6-10 BIG 12) VS. NO. 14 KANSAS JAYHAWKS (21-8, 11-5 BIG 12)

• Desert Financial Arena, Tempe, Arizona, 8 p.m. Central time

• Broadcast: FS1

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KKSW FM 105.9 / KMXN FM 92.9)

KEEP AN EYE OUT

Frontcourt fouls: The Arizona loss revealed how vulnerable KU is to foul trouble in the post (and emphasized just how significant it has been throughout the year that Flory Bidunga has become less prone to fouling). When freshman Bryson Tiller committed two fouls in just over two minutes of action, it forced the Jayhawks to play small against a team entirely suited to handle that sort of lineup, which had a lot to do with the Wildcats’ ensuing 19-0 run. When KU tried to add some size off the bench with Paul Mbiya, the freshman had a few solid moments but also demonstrated how raw he still is at this stage of his career. ASU may not have the talent of Motiejus Krivas or Koa Peat in its own frontcourt, but it certainly has the size with Diop, Grbović and Trouet to punish the Jayhawks accordingly if anything similar happens again. Self said on Monday that he sees Mbiya having a role going forward against bigger teams, so he could have another chance to prove his worth on Tuesday.

Battle on the glass: Despite all its size, ASU has inexplicably ranked among the worst rebounding teams in the league. Its numbers are a bit better in Big 12 play, but the Sun Devils are still 13th of 16 teams with an average rebounding margin of minus-3.8. The 12.3 rebounds per game that ASU gets from Diop and Trouet are 37% of the team’s total. Considering the extent to which Bidunga and Tiller got outmatched on the boards on Saturday — Arizona outrebounded KU by 22 — this could be an opportunity for them to get back on track in that realm.

Bench bonanza: Elmarko Jackson and Jamari McDowell continue to serve as Self’s typical top choices off the bench, helping to create a rotation that has worked well in plenty of big wins for the Jayhawks this year. But neither accomplished much on Saturday and Jackson’s shot selection was poor at times as he went 1-for-7, and Jayden Dawson and Kohl Rosario got seven minutes each. KU continues to get little in terms of offensive output from its bench. Will Self do any additional tinkering? He said he wants to get to nine usable players — “I think that would be a pretty good number for us” — which would require either Dawson or Rosario to emerge behind Jackson and McDowell.

OFF-KILTER OBSERVATION

Former KU signee Marcus Adams Jr. is a member of the Sun Devils, after a long road that took him through Gonzaga, BYU and Cal State Northridge, but he has not played since Jan. 3 and was averaging 3.6 points and 2.4 rebounds before then.