(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)
The Battle4Atlantis Tournament’s grand finale was not its championship matchup between Baylor and Michigan State. The Bears’ victory opened the third day of play on Friday.
Instead, it was a showdown between two defeated teams desperately determined for a victory to close out their time in Nassau: Arizona State Men’s Basketball (2-5) and the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers (5-2).
From the tip, such desperation fueled the fast action witnessed in Imperial Arena.
Just 16 seconds in, the Sun Devils shattered the ice with textbook high-low action between junior forward Alonzo Gaffney and senior forward Kimani Lawrence.
Even before Lawrence received the rock at the free-throw line, Gaffney quickly managed backside leverage on his mismatch with Loyola-Chicago junior guard Braden Norris. Once ASU senior guard Marreon Jackson entered the ball into the high-post, Lawrence did not hesitate to shoot a looping pass over the top for a Gaffney dunk.
Several possessions later, the early score of the contest read 6-6.
This time it was Lawrence finding a mismatch, as Norris switched onto him from a ball screen at the left-wing. Sophomore guard DJ Horne came off the pick and swung the ball to Jackson at the top of the key, who had the perfect angle to string through an overhead pass to the rolling Lawrence for another ASU dunk.
A slice over three minutes had elapsed as the Sun Devils possessed the early 8-6 advantage.
The problem was that the two-point advantage would mark their final lead of the contest, as ASU lost 77-59 to the Ramblers and dropped its fourth straight game, leaving its record at 2-5.
Despite what the loss may suggest, head coach Bobby Hurley and company arguably put together their best first-half performance of the tournament. At halftime, ASU found itself at a manageable six-point deficit.
Though only four of ASU’s 12 first-half buckets were assisted upon, its individual talent across the board was part of the reason eight different players recorded a field goal.
Down 20-13 at the 11:09 mark, Horne took a handoff from Gaffney several steps off the right wing and immediately launched a contested three that rung through the bottom of the net. The Illinois State transfer was 2-3 from beyond the arc Friday night, continuing his excellent early-season three-point shooting. In the Bahamas, Horne would finish with 12 three-pointers across ASU’s three games while hitting them at a ridiculous 60% clip.
Following a 9-3 Ramblers run, Sun Devils’ junior forward Jalen Graham and junior guard Luther Muhammad contributed back-to-back scores amidst back-to-back stops.
Catching an entrance pass with his back-to-the-basket, Graham faced up his defender just above the left short-corner and drove right before employing a smooth spin into an uncontested finish off the glass.
On the back end of a possession with heavy ball movement and dribble-drive penetration, Muhammad caught the final pass from Graham and worked into a one-dribble pull-up jumper just inside the circle.
With around three minutes remaining and the score sporting a 34-25 lead for Loyola-Chicago, ASU navigated a possession that became perhaps the greatest example of its offense through the first 20 minutes.
Extra passes from Muhammad and Heath, plus a baseline drive from Lawrence prefaced an isolation opportunity for Jackson. With the Sun Devils’ ball movement and penetration having scrambled the Ramblers defense, the Toledo graduate transfer had the space to work his defender into the key, gather with two feet, and manage a side-step scoop finish off the left of the square.
Feeding off of enough ball movement and court spacing to open up for better one-on-one opportunities, Hurley’s group finished an excellent 12-26 from the field and 3-6 from deep on Friday.
But considering the score heading into the break read 39-33 in favor of the Ramblers, Loyola-Chicago head coach Drew Valentine’s offense was a tick better.
His leading scorers after the first half represented the dynamic offense the Ramblers’ brought to the floor. Sophomore center Jacob Hutson led the way with nine points and senior guard Lucas Williamson trailed behind with eight.
Two early three-pointers were to credit for Williamson’s halftime total, with both plays setting the tone for his team’s tremendous success from deep.
Five passes were made before Williamson’s first three. After two preliminary passes between junior guard Marquise Kennedy and Norris, Kennedy drove deep into the key before skipping a pass to senior forward Aher Uguak in the right-corner. From there, two extra passes were made from Uguak to Norris then Norris to Williamson, who completed the possession with his catch-and-shoot release.
Williamson’s second hit from distance came as a second-chance opportunity. He heaved one to start the sequence in order to beat the Ramblers’ initial shot clock, and Uguak’s hustle to retain possession on a horizontal dive for the rebound set the play in motion. After Kennedy lost and retained a second loose ball, the Sun Devils’ defense was in a scrambled state, leaving Williamson all alone in the opposite corner for another three points.
The level of ball movement and hustle displayed on these two early possessions for Loyola-Chicago persisted, aiding its six threes, ten assists and six offensive rebounds registered by the end of the period.
Hutson’s first half high of nine points were both a byproduct of the aforementioned components and his consistent tendency to dive towards the hoop.
One of Valentine’s sets got the ball to Hutson at the top of the key, where he eventually handed it off to an up-sprinting Kennedy. Immediately after the exchange, Hutson sprinted straight down the center of the paint where his efforts would result in a lob dunk initiated by Kennedy.
This off-ball movement from Hutson would again warrant points for the Ramblers right before the end-of-the-half. Norris controlled possession a few steps past mid-court, and Hutson essentially managed a delayed show-and-go above the left-elbow. Seeing this, Norris timed up his pass with Hutson’s back cut as the 6-foot-10 center sent his team into the half with a layup and two additional points to the Ramblers’ name.
These small details behind Hutson’s effectiveness were further uplifted by three spot-up makes beyond the arc in the second half. Combined with an overall continuation of pristine ball movement, it paints a solid picture of why the Ramblers ran away with the game in the ending frame.
Hutson finished with a career-high 26 points and his team ended with six threes and ten assists in the second half. The Ramblers managed to maintain their high percentage from the field with an elite 26-52 shooting night and a 46.2 percentage from three.
But Loyola-Chicago may not deserve all the credit for its 77-59 win over ASU. After all, it scored one point less in the second half than it did in the first.
The decent offensive flow the Sun Devils cultivated in the opening period was not sustained in the subsequent frame.
Though they weren’t forcing the issue from downtown as has been typical of this ASU offense, the lack of consistent ball and player movement stagnated the effectiveness of their isolation opportunities. Compared to an already low total of four assists in the first half, just one of ASU’s eight field goals came on the butt of a pass.
Perhaps those are the stats that explain the Sun Devils’ 36.4% clip from the field in the second half of Friday night’s loss.
