(Photo: Brendan O’Keeffe/WCSN)
Arizona State Men’s Basketball (13-16) opened up its final two-game home stand of the season against the California Golden Bears (12-18), and in what was a game of dominance from the home team, the Sun Devils defeated Cal 71-44 to claim their sixth victory in their last seven games.
Entering Thursday night’s game, the Sun Devils were going up against a Cal team that was fresh off of a 53-39 victory against Stanford, in which senior guard Jordan Shepard exploded for 28 points.
Shepard tried to get himself going with an early hard drive to the basket, but was denied at the rim by junior forward Jalen Graham. A few plays later, sophomore guard Jay Heath took the ball coast-to-coast as part of ASU’s 6-0 run to open up the game.
In his first nine minutes of play, ASU senior forward Kimani Lawrence had totaled eight of the Sun Devils’ 16 total points.
A few plays later, junior forward Alonzo Gaffney launched and connected on a three-point shot, helping ASU go up 23-13 on the Golden Bears with 7:31 left in the half.
The Sun Devils later went up 12 points at the 2:43 mark, but the Golden Bears outscored ASU 8-2 to close out the first half only trailing by six points going into their locker room up 31-25.
“I just would have liked for us to finish the first half a little better,” ASU head coach Bobby Hurley said. “We left a few things on the table.”
In the first half, ASU had active hands on the defensive side of the ball, recording five steals, almost matching its season average of 6.6 per game. In total, the Sun Devils forced eight Golden Bear turnovers, which led to seven points.
“I thought our activity was good forcing turnovers,” Hurley said.
The Sun Devils were able to regain their 10-point lead just over four minutes into the second half after Gaffney followed a missed layup by Graham with an emphatic putback slam.
Around the nine minute mark, the Sun Devils saw themselves gain a 24-point lead, after a 18-2 run which included an alley-oop connection between senior guard Marreon Jackson and Gaffney and four three-pointers knocked down.
After their second-half run, Hurley knew that his team had likely sealed the deal.
“A team like that, once we got it to a 16, 18, 20-[point lead], just their style of how they play makes it more difficult for them to realistically get back into the game,” Hurley said.
It was their second-half shooting that helped the Sun Devils put the game out of reach the Golden Bears’ claw. In the second frame, ASU shot a whopping 64.3% from the field, going 18-28. They were also able to knock down four three-pointers, shooting 4-8 (50%).
“For us to shoot the numbers we shot shows that we’re playing better at that end of the floor and that’s kind of been the difference,” Hurley said.
Although no Sun Devil finished in double-digits, it was an all-hands-on-deck performance, with sophomore guard DJ Horne leading the team with nine points, while Heath and Jackson combined for 15.
The Sun Devils credit their late season surge to the struggles that they faced in the beginning of the season.
“We learned a lot early in the season, losing [as] many games that we did, and this is the same team that beat us by 20 a few weeks ago, so we just play with a chip on our shoulder now no matter who we’re playing,” Lawrence said.
The Sun Devils will have a short turnaround, as they close out their season with a home game against Stanford on Saturday at 1 p.m. MST.
