(Photo: Alex Roddier/WCSN)
Speaking to the media Tuesday, coach Bobby Hurley pinned his team’s defense as one of its strengths despite allowing 85 points to a mediocre Stanford team.
Thursday night, it was defense that secured the victory for the Sun Devils (12-5, 3-2 Pac-12) in a 70-67 win over the Oregon State Beavers (11-5, 3-1).
“At home you know you have to win,” Hurley said. “We dropped one already so you definitely don’t want to start the week with putting more pressure on yourself for Saturday’s game.”
Despite a night that was dominated by the Sun Devils, Oregon State had the ball with 12 seconds left trailing by three points.
ASU showed its defensive tenacity for one final stand, swarming the arc and forcing OSU to pass up a couple of looks before sophomore Ethan Thompson had to shoot a contested three-pointer at the buzzer, which missed the rim and secured an ASU victory.
“We knew that they were going to pass the ball around and drag us through the (shot) clock,” sophomore guard Remy Martin said. “For us to stay focused and play through it and make them take a contested jumper or a shot they don’t usually take is how we got going.”
The Sun Devils played aggressive and energetic defense from the opening tip and had forced 5 OSU turnovers in the first 9 minutes, even though they had yet to turn the ball over themselves.
ASU held a 31-22 lead at halftime, in large part due to them keeping the Beavers around 25 percent shooting from the field over the first 20 minutes. This continued into the second, as ASU went on a 9-0 run in the first 2:28 to open up an 18-point lead.
“We got to grind it out some on defense, like we did, and just to hold a team like that to 22 points through like 25 or 26 minutes was a real accomplishment,” Hurley said. “The guys answered the bell to what we were talking about, preparing for this game, and then we won the rebounding battle. That was something we talked about at halftime.”
Senior forward Zylan Cheatham was careless with the ball at times- especially during OSU’s rally down the stretch- accounting for seven of ASU’s 11 turnovers on the night.
However, he once again made his presence felt in all phases of the game, outdoing star Beavers forward Tres Tinkle for much of the night and finishing with a game high 13 rebounds, 10 points (good for his seventh double-double of the season) and tied Tinkle for a game high six assists.
Cheatham’s other half in sophomore Romello White was also an impact player down low, scoring 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting from the field and adding eight rebounds. But the duo, along with senior forward De’Quon Lake and junior guard Rob Edwards, all were in foul trouble by the under-eight media timeout.
The Sun Devils were still ahead 56-45 with the game paused at the 7:26 mark, but all those players had three fouls with the exception of White, who had four.
“I didn’t want to take ‘Mello out, he was a real presence tonight,” Hurley said. “He scored, he got some offensive rebounds, just his ball screen defense- everything he did, he had a really good night so you hate to have to take him out.”
Hurley made several substitutions from about the eight to five-minute marks in the second half, bringing guys in-and-out, especially White, in an attempt to manage the foul situation.
The Beavers stayed in the game thanks to a strong night from Thompson, who finished tied with a game high 21 points thanks to 5-for-10 three-point shooting. The Sun Devils one-upped the Beavers though with sharp three-point shooting of their own.
This effort was led by Edwards, who finished with a team high 13 points thanks to 3-for-6 shooting from beyond the arc, as well as freshman Taeshon Cherry, who scored 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting from three while adding six rebounds and a blocked shot.
“Our (three-point shooting) numbers were good at 40 percent overall and (Cherry) had great practices coming into this game and he was very locked in,” Hurley said. “A game like this, I think, could be a boost to his confidence moving forward.”
ASU was keeping an arm’s length ahead of the Beavers down the stretch, but Hurley’s squad let OSU get a little too confident in the game’s final minutes.
Back-to-back triples from Thompson and sophomore guard Zach Reichle turned a nine-point lead to a three-point one in the blink of an eye with just over a couple of minutes left in the game.
Still leading 64-61 with under a minute left, a dunk by Cheatham after he ran through Tres Tinkle extended the lead to five- only to have Tinkle respond by converting an and-1.
Then Cheatham outdid himself, putting back a thunderous dunk on a missed Edwards jumper that put ASU ahead 68-64 with 40 seconds remaining for the potential game-sealing basket.
Except Tinkle responded on the other end by hitting an NBA-range three, and all of a sudden it was a one-point game with less than 20 seconds to go.
After an inbound that saw ASU turn the ball over, only to have OSU immediately turn the ball back over to freshman guard Luguentz Dort, Hurley’s most reliable free-throw shooter in Edwards was fouled- a key development for another poor free-throw shooting night for the Sun Devils, who went 10-for-22, good for 45 percent, from the foul line.
“For Rob to step up to the line and make both in that spot just to keep the margin where it was- it was a good feeling,” Hurley said.
“I work on free throws every day,” Edwards said. “I got a lot of confidence in myself when I shoot from long range- like three-pointers- so when I’m open at the free-throw line that’s a little closer range so I just don’t think about missing at all. I just think about whatever we got as the score it’s going to be plus two.”
These baskets did seal the game, capping off another Sun Devil victory that came as a result of a balanced effort. ASU’s top six scorers all were between nine and 13 points, and they had four or more double-digit scorers- a theme across all but one victory since the start of December.
“Everybody was in the stat book today,” Edwards said. “I feel like that’s going to boost us up for Saturday and that just gives us the confidence that we need to put two (wins) together this week.”
“I just think that when we play our game and everybody is contributing then we’re a hard team to stop and nobody can really beat us” Martin said. “We made sure that everybody was contributing and everybody was held accountable for their actions, so we got the win today because everybody contributed.”
This was key on a night where Dort and Martin combined to shoot 7-for-22 from the field, 2-for-10 from three and 3-for-10 at the foul line. But the team had their back, and the duo played smart- combining for six assists and only three turnovers while adding three steals.
Their tenacious defense, especially Martin’s unmatched full-court press, seemed to rub off on the rest of the team in the eventually victorious effort.
ASU returns to action Saturday night to host Oregon. The game starts at 7:30 p.m. and will be televised on Pac-12 Networks.
