ASU Basketball: Old demons haunt the Sun Devils in season opener

(Photo: Scotty Bara/WCSN)

 

Bobby Hurley said it best: Losing to Sacramento State at home was not the ideal way to start the new era of Sun Devil basketball. Sure, the result wasn’t good. In fact, Hurley went as far to say that it was embarrassing. But the scoreboard was just the cherry on top of all the old issues that were not proven to be fixed in this game.

Of course it is early, but the changes Hurley advertised for this team were immense, and even in a schematic sense, there should have been obvious differences on display against Sacramento State. Instead, ASU found itself distressed because of the same issues the team suffered from last season.

Free throw shooting in a close game

The first of these many issues, and maybe the most notable, was the free throw shooting. Last year, ASU attempted the third most free throws in the conference only trailing Arizona and Stanford. The Sun Devils’ 766 attempts in 34 games played had them at the line 22.5 times per game. They made 511 of those attempts, making 66.7 percent of their free throws (10th in the Pac-12) and averaging about seven misses per game.

Utah was sixth in the Pac-12 last year making 70 percent of its free throws. Had ASU made 70 percent of its 766 attempts, that would mean they make 536 free throws on the season, an extra 25 makes.

While one could argue that those makes could have gone to any of the Sun Devils’ 34 games, they only met their 66.7 percent from the line in only one of their six three-point losses. In other words, the only thing keeping ASU from an average free throw percentage was the close games.

This was a mirror image of what happened in the 2015-16 season opener.

ASU’s returners bring a combined free throw percentage of 68.5. They shot 56 percent from the line as a team against Sacramento State, and went to the line 27 times. Statistically with the team’s returning free throw percentage, they should have made 18 of its 27 as opposed to 15, which is three extra points, and essentially a tied game.

Settling for threes

Last season, ASU had two very good three-point shooters in Bo Barnes and Jon Gilling. Of the four players to attempt at least 100 threes last season, they were the only two to make 35 percent of their shots from downtown.

As a team, they were the seventh best team in the Pac-12 in terms of three-point percentage last season at exactly 35 percent. Despite being a less than outstanding three-point shooting team, the Sun Devils attempted the second-most threes in the conference.

A lot of this comes from the lack of ability to score against the zone. Several nonconference games last season against mid-major schools were close because they decided to go zone against ASU, and the Sun Devil offense seemed to have their plug pulled.

While they may have gotten trigger-happy at times last season, there is no better example of this than Hurley’s debut.

Sacramento State spent a majority of the game in a zone, and the Sun Devils struggled to find the windows and attack the interior. Instead, they at times passed the ball around the perimeter, and when the shot clock ran down they had no choice but to pull up from three.

This did not pay off at all.

The Sun Devils shot 2-for-17 from three, a whopping 11.8 percent. Senior guard Gerry Blakes along with junior guard Andre Spight, who is a highly anticipated three-point-shooting JUCO transfer, combined 0-for-9 from deep.

What Hurley was supposed to bring to this Sun Devil team was high tempo and a lot of possessions per game. Last night we did see 70 possessions for ASU, which is about four more than its average per game last season. Its average possession also lasted 15 seconds, which was four seconds longer than the average Sacramento State possession. But based on the offensive production, the change in pace didn’t make much of a difference at all.

Defense

ASU was on-par with its average from last season in terms of points allowed. Sacramento State scored 66, last season ASU gave up 66.6 per game. The main issue that stands out is obviously why is ASU allowing Sacramento State to even approach that average. But the fact of the matter is how they did it is an even bigger issue than the fact that they did it at all.

The on-ball defense was subpar. Maybe the only thing worse than that was was the ball screen defense. Sacramento State’s sophomore point guard Marcus Graves managed to score 20 points on 8-for-15 shooting, but only three of his misses came inside the three-point line.

He was able to get to the rim at will because the ball containment was nonexistent coming off ball screens. When someone did step up and stop Graves on his way to the basket, the second rotation of help defense rarely showed up, so all Graves had to do was dump it off for an easy lay in.

Senior center Eric Jacobsen mentioned after the game that the ball screen defense just has to be better, and in the game, guys were just getting attached to their matchups rather than helping.

Before anything else this offseason, Hurley mentioned the importance of defense and how that was going to be schematically implemented before the offense because if defense is ran correctly, then the offense will come easier in transition.

With so much anticipation for change coming into this season, the opener was a monumental disappointment. Sure, a loss is hard to handle, but seeing it come in such familiar ways makes it all the more difficult.

Jacobsen mentioned postgame that they are still learning the new system, and while it may not be time to panic just yet, getting off to a start the way they did may be a cause for concern in how far along they are in the learning process.

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