LOS ANGELES -- Ty Abbott, Rik Kuksiks and Jamelle McMillan did not have the season they wanted, and it ended too soon in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament at Staples Center on Wednesday.
In that one way, the evening was the opposite of the impact they had on the Arizona State program.
They made school history.
Seniors Abbott, Kuksiks and McMillan won 80 games, more than any other players at ASU, in their careers that ended with a 76-69 first-round loss to Oregon, a team that the Sun Devils beat by 20 only six days ago.
The seniors said goodbye to the home fans with consecutive drubbings of the Oregon schools last week, but a continuation may have been too much to expect.
This time it was Oregon making the 3-pointers (11) and the plays.
It is never easy to beat the same team three times in one season, especially teams that are relatively equal. And while ASU (12-19) beat the Ducks in both regular-season meetings, including a 73-53 victory in which they made 15 3-pointers Thursday at Wells Fargo Arena, Oregon (15-16) won three more games in the Pac-10 season and came in as the better seed.
Oregon did a few things differently defensively this time.
Ducks guard Garrett Sim played Abbott man-to-man Wednesday while the rest of the team played a zone defense, and the box-and-one kept ASU from draining threes the way they did last weekend. Sim effectively kept the ball from ASU's offensive catalyst, and when he took a rest, Jay-R Strowbridge and Johnathan Loyd did the same.
Abbott, who made 12 3-pointers last weekend and was named the Pac-10 player of the week for his efforts, had only one field goal attempt, a 3-point miss from the left corner in the final 90 seconds of the first half.
"They really decided they were going to take him out of the game, and they did a good job doing that," ASU coach Herb Sendek said.
"They had him everywhere. A box-and-one, and that really threw us off," McMillan said. "We prepared all week for something completely different. They just had us in chaos."
McMillan took up some of the slack by making three early 3-pointers, but open looks were few and far between for a team that needs to score from the perimeter.
Sophomore Trent Lockett led ASU with 28 points, and he led a late charge that whittled a 20-point Oregon lead to the final margin, seven, in the final minute.
McMillan and Kuksiks had 11 points, and Abbott was held scoreless. He broke off a postgame interview, overcome by the finality of things.
But for that trio, it is not about one game but about the body of work, to use a phrase favored by the NCAA tournament selection committee.
Abbott played 130 games, second in school history, and his 1,330 points are 15th on the career list. He became the second player in school history to reach 4,000 minutes late in the first half, finishing with 4,019. His 273 3-pointers are third in school history.
Kuksiks' 130 threes rank second. McMillan played in 122 games, tied for sixth in ASU history. Kuksiks played in 121.
"They are a great bunch of guys," said Lockett, adding that he will take the lessons learned from the seniors into next season. "It's terrible to see them go out like this. They've had great careers. This year just didn't really pan out the way we expected it to."
It was not an easy year. Injuries and illness forced ASU into 11 lineups this season, with 11 different starting players. Each of the top four scorers -- Abbott, Kuksiks, Lockett and McMillan -- missed at least two games because of injury.
"They're every-day guys," Lockett said. "They carry themselves well. Even in bad situations, they always do the right thing. We can learn from that and move this program."
Said McMillan: "I'm extremely proud of my teammates. Ty and Rik, they are the best. It's been a lot of fun. My whole deal was coming in every single day and playing for the fans, my teammates, my coaches. That's who I laid it on the line for. That's what it meant to me."
And for the program, it meant 80 victories.
"It's a true testament to the blood and the sweat we poured out every day for four years," he said.
