(Photo: Brendan O’Keeffe/WCSN)
On the heels of three straight victories against Pac-12 Conference opponents, Arizona State Men’s Basketball (10-16, 6-10 Pac-12) entered Pauley Pavilion on Monday night hoping to snag its second-straight victory against the No. 12-ranked UCLA Bruins (20-5, 12-4) this season. However, after a game full of back-and-forth runs from both squads, the Bruins ultimately ended the second half on a 20-7 run to come out on top over the Sun Devils 66-52.
The Bruins entered Monday night’s contest missing a key piece of their offensive game plan in starting junior guard Tyger Cambell. On the season, Campbell has averaged nearly 12 points per game to go along with 4.4 assists and 2.7 rebounds.
Without their floor general on the court, the Bruins struggled on the offensive side of the ball to start out, not scoring a field goal for the first 3:30 of the game.
However, the tandem of sophomore guard Jaylen Clark and senior guard Jules Bernard made up for Campbell’s absence, with the two ending the first half with a combined 21 points and eight rebounds.
As for ASU, its struggles on the offensive side of the ball lasted the entire first half, as it only scored 21 points and shot 34.6% (9-26) from the field and 12.5% (1-8) from beyond the three-point line.
A big reason why the Sun Devils couldn’t get into an offensive groove was due to their turnovers. They gave the ball up nine times in the first half, leading to 11 UCLA points.
The Bruins took advantage of ASU’s mistakes and went up by as many as 17 points, going on a 19-6 run toward the end of the first frame. The Sun Devils were able to cut their lead by a few points and went into halftime down 13 by a score of 34-21.
Coming out of the locker room after the break, the Sun Devils looked like they were energized on the offensive end. After an early UCLA bucket, ASU sophomore guard DJ Horne got himself going with a contested jump-shot over Bruins junior guard Jaime Jaquez Jr. He then heated up from downtown, adding a pair of three pointers to cut UCLA’s lead to just six points.
Horne finished the game with nine points and four assists.
Minutes later, ASU senior guard Marreon Jackson capped off a 20-7 Sun Devil stretch with a running floater over Clark to put the game within one point with just over eight minutes remaining.
However, that would be the closest that ASU would come to stealing the lead from the Bruins, as UCLA proceeded to close out the game on a 20-7 run of its own late in the second half, with nine of those points coming from the charity stripe.
The free-throw disparity was largely in favor of the Bruins on Monday night, as they shot 20 in the game compared to only four from the Sun Devils.
ASU will stay on the road for its next game when they take on the Colorado Buffaloes (18-9, 10-7 Pac-12) on Thursday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. MST.
