ASU Men’s Basketball: Free throws galore in Tempe as Sun Devils top PVAMU 88-79

(Photo: Brady Klain/WCSN)

It took 40 hard minutes and 51 free throw attempts, but the Arizona State Sun Devils (7-2) slugged their way to another non-conference victory, this time an 88-79 win against Prairie View A&M, at Desert Financial Arena on Wednesday night.

The two sides committed 57 fouls and had 84 chances at the charity stripe between them. With ASU making 37-of-51 (72.5 percent) and PVAMU making 21-of-33 (63.6 percent, free throws helped the Sun Devils pull away from a team they were projected to beat by 19.

At the heart of ASU’s struggle to put the Panthers away was difficulty making shots from deep. ASU ranks 10^th in the Pac-12 in three-point percentage and went 5-of-17 (29.4 percent) on Wednesday. While the team generated decent looks for shooters against PVAMU, and has all season, they are struggling to convert them into points.

“I asked the locker room ‘How many guys had an open three tonight?’ and a lot of hands go up and not a lot of baskets when through the rim,” ASU head coach Bobby Hurley said. “We’re getting to the point where we gotta start evaluating if we should be taking them and who should be taking them.”

The free-throw fest became quite a slog and not the excellent showing ASU’s players and staff hoped for, but there were several positive signs on the home side. Alonzo Verge Jr., who has struggled to establish himself this season, in part due to injury, scored 20 points on 6-for-12 shooting. The JUCO transfer, a legend at Moberly Area Community College, said the past few weeks have been the biggest challenge he’s faced in his basketball career.

“It’s very hard because I’ve never been through adversity like this, basketball-wise,” Verge said. “It’s something new that I decided to take head-on.”

In contrast to Verge, for whom Wednesday was a breakout from his recent struggles, forward Romello White continued to build off an impressive run of games. He put up 14 points and 16 boards, his third-straight double-double, shooting 2-of-2 from the field but making 10 of his 14 foul shots.

White’s progress as a scoring threat has led to him facing more double teams when he gets the ball inside. While he has the ability to muscle through those traps and score or draw fouls, making the right pass in that situation is another critical component. While he was only credited with one assist and had two turnovers, White made several passes out of doubles that forced PVAMU’s defense to play catch-up, helping ASU get open looks.

“We’ve been working in practice for me doing escape dribbling and looking for the opposite man,” White said. “It’s kind of second nature for me now. I look early and just try to go quick, just look for the open teammate.”

White has managed to produce despite being a focal point of opposing defenses the last couple games, but for Hurley, the key to fully unleashing him is getting the shooters up to par.

“If I was scouting us, I would try and go to him and trap him the way a lot of teams have been doing until we start being more consistent and making teams pay,” Hurley said.

Forward Mickey Mitchell also saw action on Wednesday, his first since December 7, 2018 due to injuries. While he didn’t get on the stat sheet in three first-half minutes, his availability gives the already-deep Sun Devils another player who could contribute.

That deep rotation has yet to live up to its full potential in the eyes of Hurley and the team. After expressing displeasure with their performance after Saturday’s 77-65 win over Louisiana, the slugfest Wednesday was an imperfect but workable response, about which Hurley remarked “88 points is a lot of points.”

White believe this group living up to its potential is within reach with some clean up on both sides of the ball.

“We’re definitely right there,” he said. “It’s just a couple little things on defense that we went over in film and hitting more shots, but we’re right there.”

The Sun Devils will need to get from “right there” to “there” as quickly as possible. On Saturday, the Georgia Bulldogs and potential No. 1 draft pick Anthony Edwards come to Tempe. Following that, ASU has three more non-conference games to work out the kinks before they face No. 15 Arizona.