(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
On a neutral floor against the No. 6 team in the nation, No. 20 Arizona State had a chance to show off for NBA legends and scouts, but fell 72-66 in Staples Center to the Nevada Wolf Pack.
The game started at lightning pace. While Rob Edwards and Remy Martin both returned to the lineup, Luguentz Dort facilitated the offense once again. The ball moved fluidly throughout the hands of each Sun Devil player and immediately following the onset of the matchup, Bobby Hurley and his young team took a commanding lead.
Just seven minutes into the game the score was 18-5. The Wolf Pack looked nothing like the nation’s sixth-best team. This start was the dream for Hurley who preached the importance of a hot start at Wednesday’s practice back in Tempe.
“A hot start will be exactly what we need,” Hurley said before the game. “If we fall behind to them early the game will be over before it started. We will need to come out swinging and take some momentum.”
As the first half progressed, that “come out swinging” mentality never let up. ASU limited Nevada to just 24 points on 8-of-25 shooting. The Martin twins, Cody and Caleb, Nevada’s star players, combined for just four points and making one field goal the entire half. The Devils also forced 10 first-half turnovers, Nevada averaged just nine turnovers a game heading into the matchup.
Wolf Pack coach, Eric Musselman credited ASU with an impressive first-half performance.
“I need to give Arizona State a ton of credit for the way they came out in the first half,” Musselman said. “I think they came out as aggressive as any team that we’ve seen. Even from a defensive standpoint, picking up full court right away.”
Hurley echoed the sentiment. He loved the first half play and told the media during the press conference that this was what he was looking for. He praised Nevada like Musselman praised ASU but when the complimenting came to an end, the two coaches hit a fork in the road and Hurley took the path labeled ‘loss’.
There is certainly something to be said for the game starting over in the second half regardless of the score. The Wolf Pack, in this particular game, trailed by 12 points to open up the ladder part of the contest but to them, it did not seem to matter.
“Basketball is a game of runs,” ASU’s Zylan Cheatham said. “In the first half we had ours and in the second half, they had theirs. It was over after that.”
The half started at lightning pace. The Martin brothers facilitated the offense better than they had all game, the ball moved fluidly throughout the hands of each Wold Pack player and immediately following the onset of the half, Eric Musselman and his team filled with experience took a commanding lead. Sound familiar?
In the first four minutes after the break, Nevada went on an 11-2 scoring run, bringing the game to within three points. That same gut punch mentality that ASU brought in the first half was matched and exceeded by Nevada in the second.
The Devils were ultimately outscored 48-28 en route to a loss in which they blew a 12-point lead in 20 minutes. The Sun Devils could taste the upset but the Wolf Pack could smell blood after halftime and they knew exactly what to do.
“This just speaks more to what we have on the court,” Musselman said. “We work well with momentum and we got the job done after halftime.”
Caleb Martin knew this too adding, “Coach told us at halftime, ‘this is what you do when you play a team with a number next to their name? Come on!’ and that got us going.”
For the Devils, the game should not have been as exciting as it was. The Devils led by 12 at halftime and were outscored 48-28 after the break. It’s the first loss of the season for ASU who is now 7-1. Nevada moved to 9-0.
Perhaps it was the team’s health and depth that hurt them under the lights of Staples Center. The team had every player on the court at some point for the first time since opening night, arguably the teams second worst game of the year behind this one.
“I think depth might have hurt us tonight,” Hurley said. “It is always great to have everyone out there because you know how hard these kids work to be healthy but it did nothing for us in this game. Having everyone out there seemed to overwhelm us in the second half.”
It is an issue the Devils need to solve quickly. The toughest stretch of their still-young season starts now and simply having healthy players on the roster cannot be the reason they struggle to win games.
Nevada proved something to ASU on Friday: basketball is about momentum and you can win games whenever you choose to capture it. Next, the Devils take on the Georgia Bulldogs in Atlanta, needing to make some changes after coming apart in the second half
