(Photo: Max Zepeda/WCSN)
Through two games, Arizona State Men’s Basketball’s performances have been vastly different.
On Thursday night’s 84-68 win over Northern Arizona (0-2), it seemed as if the Sun Devils (2-0) heard much of the criticism poured on them for their close win over Tarleton State.
On Monday night, ASU could not get a lot of rim pressure which led to a lot of contested pull-up threes. With the NAU having only one player over 6-foot-8, ASU wanted to punish its physical advantage.
“We wanted to attack the paint,” head coach Bobby Hurley said. “We felt like we had a physical advantage … I felt like we wanted to try and dominate the paint, and I thought our defense helped.”
Emblematic of the Sun Devils’ ability to move the ball was their assist total. Monday night, the Sun Devils finished the game with 10 assists, while on Thursday, ASU reached 10 assists by the end of the first half, finishing with 18.
Dishing out six of those 10 first-half assists was sophomore guard Frankie Collins. The Sacramento native came to Tempe hoping to be the true point guard that Hurley was missing, but Monday night, he was unable to show his playmaking ability. Thursday night Collins was crucial, driving to the basket, dishing to teammates, and overall being the pure point guard Hurley expected him to be.
“Frankie picked his spots very well just when to look for his own shot and finding his teammates,” Hurley said. “He showed what we’ve been seeing out of him for four months now. And I think there’s still a ton of potential there.”
The main beneficiary of Collins’ facilitating was junior guard DJ Horne, who bounced back by scoring a Sun Devil career-high of 25 points. Horne had a strong first half, scoring 18 points on 62.5 percent shooting, along with three assists and three rebounds.
“It felt good for me,” Horne said. “I want to win, so whatever it takes to win at the end of the day, that’s what I am the happiest about. The fact that it was my career night here, it’s a win.”
Horne represented an improvement in efficiency for ASU as a whole, improving its shooting percentage in all three categories. They finished the game shooting 54.2 percent from the field, 52.9 percent from three and 65.7 percent from the line.
Defensively, the Sun Devils focused on limiting NAU’s three-point shooting, holding the Lumberjacks to 25 percent shooting from beyond the arc. In the paint, the Sun Devils only had three blocks, but senior forward Warren Washington made use of his 7-foot frame, becoming a presence in the lane. ASU also dominated the boards, out-rebounding the Lumberjacks 40 to 23.
Although the Sun Devils dominated the majority of the game early, the last ten minutes presented some issues. ASU was outscored 19-3 from the 6-minute mark to 1:05 left in the game, not scoring a single field goal. Hurley chalked it up to his team not being inexperienced in blowout wins.
“We just frankly weren’t good enough to last two years, to be up over 30 points,” Hurley said. “So we have to relearn what that feels like, and how to continue to be productive, continue to defend and get stops and not get distracted [by] looking at the scoreboard.”
