(Photo: Evan Barcanic/WCSN)
Arizona State men’s basketball comes back home after one of the most humiliating losses in program history.
The Sun Devils had some confidence after two consecutive wins — something they had not done since early January — against Utah and Oregon State, but reality slapped them in the face when they went down south. The 45-point loss to then-No. 5 Arizona is the largest point differential in Territorial Cup history. ASU (13-13, 7-8 Pac-12) better hope that returning to Desert Financial Arena, where the team is 9-3, will provide the spark the team needs when Washington (14-12, 6-9 Pac-12) comes to town.
Washington is a tough team to gauge at the moment because they handily defeated Stanford by 20 points on Feb. 15, but it lost to California by two points on Feb. 17. Huskies sophomore guard Koren Johnson scored a combined 46 points in the two games even though he only averages 9.7 points per game on the season, so it’s unknown what rendition of Washington will come to Tempe on Thursday.
These two teams have already played once this season, which was when the Huskies won by 15 points in Seattle on Jan. 11. The Sun Devils were up by one at halftime, but Washington hit eight of 15 three-point attempts in the final 20 minutes to complete another ASU second-half collapse.
This loss spiraled ASU downhill quickly, as it would lose six of its seven games afterward and plummet in the Pac-12 standings from first to where it stands now at tied for sixth place. Despite this loss, ASU is still above Washington in the standings and has a chance to get revenge while getting back to .500 in conference play.
ASU’s season declined after the Washington loss because its flaws were exploited. The Sun Devils started conference play on a four-game winning streak because they shot 35.4% from three in that stretch, but they have regressed toward the mean shooting 23.5% from behind the arc against the Huskies and 29.9% from three-point land in the ten games that followed.
The hot shooting streak to commence Pac-12 play overshadowed ASU’s foremost deficiency — its lack of rebounding. The Sun Devils were outrebounded in its first 11 games with the four-guard lineup, but head coach Bobby Hurley has switched it up since then. Hurley has rolled out four different lineups in the same amount of games with mixed results, going 2-2 in the stretch with the two wins being the only Pac-12 games ASU has outrebounded its opponent.
So what lineups worked in those games?
Graduate forward Alonzo Gaffney and sophomore center Shawn Phillips Jr. were the starting frontcourt in both victories. In the last meeting, Washington grabbed 11 more rebounds than ASU and Huskies senior center Braxton Meah nabbed a career-high 14 boards, so Hurley may look to put his bigger bodies in the starting five to guard the 7-foot-1 big man.
The other Huskies to look out for are forward Keion Brooks Jr. and Sahvir Wheeler, both of whom are graduate students who transferred from Kentucky. The former Wildcats lead UW in virtually every statistic, including Brooks Jr. as the leading scorer with a conference-leading 21.2 points per game. The graduate students each scored over 20 points against the Sun Devils last time and combined to make eight of their nine three-point attempts.
Wheeler is going to have his hands full with ASU junior point guard Frankie Collins, who is in pursuit of ASU’s single-season steals record. Collins needs three steals to break the record, which has stood for over four decades when Lafayette “Fat” Lever had 76 steals in the 1981-82 season. The point guard only had one steal in each of his last two games, but he is certainly capable of at least tying the record — if not breaking it — as he is fifth in the nation with 2.9 steals per game and will be motivated to do it in front of the home crowd.
It should be intriguing to see how the other ASU guards play. Graduate Jose Perez, redshirt junior Adam Miller and junior Jamiya Neal have all scored in double figures in the last three games, which is a big reason the Sun Devils won two of those matchups. All three of these guards started alongside Collins against the Wildcats, so Hurley could elect to bring one of them off the bench to get more scoring from a sixth man if he starts his two big men.
The game will be televised on ESPN2 and broadcasted over the radio on ESPN 620 AM (KTAR) at 7 pm Arizona time.
