ASU Men’s Basketball: Sun Devils lose lead in closing moments

(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)

Arizona State Men’s Basketball’s three consecutive wins heading into Sunday night’s game against San Francisco were decided by mere margins. Down 63-60 against the Dons entering crunch-time, a win or loss was primed to conclude in similarly tight fashion.

On the butt of back-to-back buckets from sophomore guards DJ Horne and Jay Heath, the Sun Devils found themselves up two, but plays that ASU senior forward Kimani Lawrence said must be executed “better” allowed for a last-minute comeback by the Dons.

With 30 seconds remaining, ASU senior guard Marreon Jackson proceeded to the free-throw line with a one-and-one opportunity to establish a two-possession lead. Among Jackson’s 24 prior attempts, he failed to convert just once. Without a doubt, Jackson was ASU head coach Bobby Hurley’s ideal option at the stripe.

“I got a guy that’s statistically made so many free throws in his career sitting at the free-throw line, up two to put us up four,” Hurley said. “With not a lot of time on the clock, you feel pretty good about where you stand.”

On the front end of the one-and-one, however, Jackson missed.

With the door open to tie or take the lead, in came controversy. On San Francisco’s ensuing possession, junior forward Dzmitry Ryuny coaxed Lawrence into the air with a shot fake and quickly managed a makeshift three-point attempt, prompting a whistle and three opportunities at the foul line.

When asked about the play after the game, Hurley refused to neither confirm nor criticize the validity of the call, but Lawrence was more willing to stake his claim.

“I don’t want to question the officiating, but I felt like I was in good position,” Lawrence said. “I thought [Ryuny] initiated the contact.”

Either way, the foul didn’t guarantee points. With the pressure on, Ryuny nailed all three free throws after shooting none for the first 39:46 of regulation.

Still, the Sun Devils were down just one point and had a substantial fourteen seconds to cover the length of the court for one final shot to decide the contest.

The ball was in the hands of Horne. Racing down the right sideline, he sliced off a screen from Lawrence and blew by the hedging defender for a lightly contested runner just steps outside the right block. Despite the excellent look, Horne’s attempt rolled in and out.

Following Ryuny’s defensive rebound, it seemed as if the game was over.

But in rather redemptive fashion, Lawrence stuck his hands to the rock and didn’t let go, forcing a jump ball and giving ASU possession for a second final shot.

The clock read just under four seconds by the time ASU’s last timeout was signaled. And after talking things over, Hurley made Jackson inbound.

After entering the ball to Gaffney just inside the right corner, Jackson sped around for a quick handoff into a heavily contested long-range look. But it didn’t fall, and the end result was a 66-65 loss for ASU at Desert Financial Area.

“I would’ve loved to have gotten a better shot than, you know, falling away from the basket,” Hurley said of the final play. “We were hoping to get something going to the basket. We wanted guys cutting into space. It was a contested three and we’re down one, so we really don’t need that type of shot. It wasn’t the best shot opportunity for us at that stage.”

For Hurley and presumably all of his players, the last-minute nature of Sunday’s loss was disappointing. But their mishaps down the stretch did not overshadow Hurley’s bigger, positive takeaways for his team’s play outside of the closing possessions.

“Guys competed hard,” Hurley said. “I think a measure of effort is creating turnovers – we created 21 turnovers, had 17 offensive rebounds. So it wasn’t a matter of guys competing, and players that participated in those statistical categories – my hat goes off to those guys tonight.”

The majority of the Dons’ turnovers came in the form of ASU steals. In the game, the Sun Devils racked up 14 total steals from six different players. Freshman guard Jamiya Neal led the way with four while Lawrence and Heath trailed with three apiece. Chipping in a steal or two further was Jackson, junior forward Alonzo Gaffney and junior guard Luther Muhammad.

As has been the case for many games this season, the aforementioned defensive proficiency helped prop up the Sun Devils’ offense amidst poor shooting numbers from the field.

On back-to-back San Francisco possessions in the opening period, Heath ripped away two consecutive steals in the backcourt to set up uncontested layups on both occasions. Though ASU would find itself at a two-point deficit heading into halftime, the sequence gave it a seven-point lead – its largest of the half and the game.

Midway through the second half, Jackson jumped a skip pass from San Francisco sophomore forward Josh Kunnen, which initiated a quick transition opportunity that ended in an assisted finish for Horne. Of the many ties that took place in the final half of play, this play broke one of them in favor of the Sun Devils.

Alongside these moments were a number of other crucial sequences that saw ASU turn defense into easy offense. By the final buzzer, Hurley’s group had scored 26 points off turnovers, which accounted for nearly 40 percent of their offensive production.

And yet, for all that could be said about the Sun Devils’ defensive prowess, the Dons still shot the ball at excellent percentages on the night.

“We lost tonight to a good basketball team,” Hurley said. “Give them credit for hitting their threes. They hit some timely threes.”

As a team, San Francisco shot a solid 43.4 percent from the field, but were particularly elite from distance. Third-year head coach Todd Golden saw his group drain 12 three-pointers at a 40-percent clip.

On its face, the wholistic figures presented by the Dons against ASU were great. However, looking further at the individual players who made shots may say a lot about how this game progressed for San Francisco and ASU.

Senior guard Jamaree Bouyea was Golden’s leading scorer coming into the contest, averaging 18.8 points per contest. He finished the game with four points on 0-6 shooting from deep. If the San Francisco coaching staff were to foresee such a performance from their best player, they’d likely consider a loss against ASU very likely.

But elsewhere in the box score, things start to make more sense. Sophomore forward Zane Meeks turned in a point total of 15 on 5-6 shooting from deep. Before Sunday night, Meeks, who averaged a mere 7.5 minutes per game in four appearances, had just 10 points to his name. It made Meeks’ performance that much more impactful, not to mention that one of his threes were the ones Hurley mentioned as “timely” on Sunday night.

After the Dons had scored six unanswered points late in the second half to knot up the score at 60, Meeks advanced his team’s run to nine with his fifth, final and most important three-point make of the game. The run in and of itself was one of sheer magnitude, as it was a resounding answer to ASU’s seven-point run prior.

In the wake of what many will consider a crushing loss, Hurley made it a point to shut down any attributions of blame in the locker room afterwards, diverting the key focus to getting such performances from ASU similar to the one San Francisco got out of Meeks.

“I told the team, you’re going to blame Kimani for getting involved in a foul up two? The dude had 18 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists,” Hurley said. “You know, it doesn’t make any sense. We just collectively need more guys playing well and hopefully some other guys will step up.”