ASU Men’s Basketball: Devils and Bruins Square Off for Only Time

On Saturday, the Arizona State Sun Devils will welcome the UCLA Bruins to Tempe. For ASU, they are coming off a thrilling comeback victory over the USC Trojans. With the win, the Sun Devils improved to 18-6 on the season, and moved to 6-6 in conference play. The Bruins (17-7, 8-4) are currently riding a four-game winning streak, and are coming off an impressive 82-74 win at Arizona.

These two teams are the highest scoring teams in the Pac-12, with ASU averaging 85 a game, and UCLA averaging 83 a game, respectively. Over the last four games, the Bruins have wins over Arizona, USC, and Stanford, who are currently in the top-five in the conference. The Bruins are led by guard, Aaron Holiday. On the season, the junior is averaging 19 points, while shooting 42 percent from deep. He also leads the team in assists, averaging over five a game. During UCLA’s four-game winning streak, he’s averaging 20.5 points and 7.8 assists per game, and is 10-for-17 from deep. Another name to watch out for is senior, Thomas Welsh. The center is a double-double machine, averaging 12.9 points, 10.4 rebounds and a block per contest.

Arizona State looks to complete their first back-to-back sweep of the season. It looked as if the Sun Devils would lose yet another, but senior guards Shannon Evans and Tra Holder led the comeback. Evans finished with 21, and Holder finished with 22 points, respectively. Tra Holder had the game-winning shot with under two seconds remaining. It was great to see ASU pull this out, as they’ve been on the losing end of many of these close games. The Devils have won three of their last four games, and appear to be trending in the right direction. They currently sit at .500 in conference play, and are on the edge of cracking the top-four, securing a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament next month.

If the Devils have any chances of winning, they need to clean in up from behind-the-line. They shot an abysmal 62.5 percent (20-for-32) from the line Thursday night. In their loss to Washington, they shot 64.7 percent. This game is huge for both teams. UCLA is just one game back from the Pac-12 lead, and the Devils are 1.5 back from being in the top four. ASU is looking for the first win over UCLA in the Bobby Hurley era. They’re also looking for the first two-game sweep in the Bobby Hurley era as well. Tip-off is at 5 p.m. M.T. and can be seen on the Pac-12 Network.