ASU Men’s Basketball: Sun Devils can’t overcome big night from Colorado backcourt

(Photo: Brady Klain/WCSN)

The Arizona State Sun Devils (16-8, 7-5 Pac-12) fell to the Colorado Buffaloes (15-9, 6-6) 77-73 Wednesday night, making them losers in two of their last three games.

More than anything else, this matchup was defined by CU’s backcourt outperforming ASU’s.

The Buffs were led by sophomore guard McKinley Wright IV’s 24 points and eight assists- both game highs- as well as sophomore Tyler Bey’s 22 points and career-high 17 rebounds. Combined, the duo shot 18-for-25 from the field and 9-for-12 from the foul line.

As for their counterparts, freshman guard Luguentz Dort led the Devils with 21 points, thanks to 8-for-9 free throw shooting, but his second 20-point outing in the last three contests was once again in a losing effort.

This was largely due to the lackluster night from the other two guards- sophomore Remy Martin and redshirt junior Rob Edwards- who combined for 13 points on the night.

The two combined to shoot 5-for-17 from the field and 1-for-7 from three, and while Martin added four rebounds and six assists, he missed all three foul shots, while Edwards- an 86 percent free-throw shooter- shot 2-for-4.

ASU looked strong in the first half though, leading nearly for its entirety and going into the locker room tied at 32. One of the early positives was the return of freshman forward Taeshon Cherry, who had been either out or extremely limited over the past five games due to multiple concussions.

Cherry scored eight of the team’s first 16 points, thanks to a couple of swished threes, but failed to score after that.

As far as the other big men, senior Zylan Cheatham quietly had another double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. However, sophomore Romello White was another second-half no-show, scoring only two points after eight in the first half.

The game’s turning point was early in the second half, in which the Sun Devils actually came out strong enough to lead by five about five minutes in.

After that though, the Buffs went on a 7-0 run to take a 46-44 lead by the 13-minute mark. ASU sophomore forward Kimani Lawrence actually kept them from pulling away at first, hitting two triples in the span of a minute to keep things level approaching the midpoint of the final 20 minutes.

But Colorado started imposing its will, with Wright making shots from all over the floor and Bey making sure the Buffs got plenty of second-chance opportunities, reflected in the fact that they won the rebounding battle 38-34.

Junior Lucas Siewert was solid all-around for the Buffs, adding six points, four rebounds and four assists, in addition to junior guard Shane Gatling, who added nine points- most of them in the second half- making him CU’s third-leading scorer.

Colorado led 56-51 with 7:42 to play, and maintained a three to five-point lead for most of the remainder of the half, until they went up eight with 2:41 to play and never looked back.

The Sun Devils couldn’t find any rhythm in the game’s final 15 minutes, as they shot 13-for-34 (38 percent) in the second half, not a surprising stat considering the quality of shots they often took during that stretch. For comparison, CU shot 14-for-25 (56 percent) in the second frame.

In reality, ASU was down 10 in the game’s final minute. Garbage time threes from Dort and Cheatham, who hit a nice bank shot that gave him the double-double, made the margin a better reflection of the game as a whole.

Next up, the Sun Devils visit the Utah Utes Saturday night at 8 p.m. The teams were in a three-way tie with Oregon State for second in the conference going into the day, and the Utes opened the conference season with a 96-86 win at ASU back on January 4.