The Sun Devils' men's basketball team lost at the buzzer against UC Riverside after JP Moorman II nailed a three-quarter court shot in front of the ASU bench to give the Highlanders a 66-65 victory.

In a chaotic finale, ASU had the ball with 14 seconds to go after a good defensive effort, contesting a three-pointer and getting the ball when the rebound went out-of-bounds. Luther Muhammad, who ended the game with 11 points, embraced the responsibility and scored a midrange floater with 1.7 left, making the home crowd roar.

The referees stopped the clock and the game as UC Riverside had no timeouts, but time remained at 1.7 on the possession after taking a look at the game clock. Another pass went out of bounds after ASU tipped it, but the officials nullified the play due with a timing situation in question.

Then, the Highlanders inbounded the ball to Moorman, who heaved in a 60-footer right in front of the ASU bench.

After a tough first half, in which UC Riverside never lost the lead thanks to an impressive 10-for-20 from beyond-the-arc, the Sun Devils came off the locker room on a much better note. Kimani Lawrence, who for the second game in a row led the Sun Devils' scoring, gave ASU its biggest lead of the game with five straight points and 12 minutes remaining.

Lawrence also starred in the best ASU play, when Alonzo Gaffney got one of his four blocks and allowed Lawrence to score a great dunk in transition. 

However, the Sun Devils could not increase their lead from those five points, which allowed the Highlanders to come close and after Moorman sinked a 3-pointer, UCR regained the lead with 2:23 to go. That started a back-and-forth trend which resulted in the buzzer beater.

For ASU, the best player was Kimani Lawrence, who wrapped up 19 points and 12 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. The other Sun Devils in double digits were Marcus Bagley with 18 (5-for-11 from the field and 3-for-4 from three) and Luther Muhammad with 11 (5-for-12). 

"I've seen what everyone in the locker room can do." Bagley said. "We know we can do it together, we have to be more consistent with it and I'm not worried about the guard play, I know that they will pick it up so it's all about coming in and leaving it all out on the court, and we'll live with the results. We just have to be better."

The ASU men's hoops team will be back for a third straight time at Desert Financial Arena next Monday (Nov. 15), when they will host the North Florida Ospreys at 7 p.m.