Sun Devils look lethargic in 83-66 loss to No. 9 Florida

(Photo: Spencer Barnes/WCSN)

Just 17 days before the football team plays in Atlanta, the Arizona State men’s basketball team got its own opportunity to play in the Peach State. While the stakes weren’t quite as high as the College Football Playoff, Holiday Hoopsgiving offered the Sun Devils its last chance at a Quad 1 win prior to the beginning of their first season in the ultra-competitive Big 12.

Playing its first ranked opponent since facing then No. 8 Gonzaga in its third game of the season, ASU (8-2) didn’t look as good against No. 9 Florida (10-0), falling to the Gators 83-66.

Despite averaging 80 points per game entering Saturday’s contest, the Sun Devil offense was inconsistent and stale, looking much more like a team in the exhibition game against Duke than the impressive showing against Gonzaga. ASU shot just 37% from the field and 28% from three.

ASU’s top scorers, freshman guard Joson Sanon and senior wing Basheer Jihad, both had season low performances, combining for just 18 points on 6-for-18 shooting, the majority of which game in garbage time.

Here are three takeaways from ASU’s disappointing performance in Atlanta.

Another Slow Start

Down 22-10 in the middle of the first half ASU was down double digits,  a theme this Sun Devil team has become familiar with early this season. There have been stretches to open games where the offense looks stagnant, and the defensive energy is lackluster. 

While the team is 8-2, there have been instances this year where the team has let other opponents go on runs. The team was down 17-5 against San Diego and 11-3 against Idaho State,  letting lesser competition, like Cal Poly, hang around for most of the game.

The Sun Devils have been able to claw their way back into most of these matchups and come out victorious. If they want to become a Top-25 team in the country, they can’t allow this to happen consistently, especially against a Top-10 team. No. 9 Florida showed them that today. 

ASU head coach Bobby Hurley received a technical in the middle of the first half for a regular occurrence. The Sun Devils have often used Hurley’s technicals this season to get back into the game.

However, the Sun Devils offense shot just 36% from the field in the first half, accounting for six turnovers and only 32 points of offense. Surprisingly, Sanon, who has been lights out for the Devils from beyond the arc,  struggled, only shooting 12% from the field and 0-3 from beyond the arc. Sanon and senior guard BJ Freeman are two of ASU’s top three scorers. Both combined for just eight points on the hardwood against the Gators in the first half. 

Regardless of whether it was an off night or not, the inconsistency in the first-half is a constant for at least the offense. Stagnant sets, forced shots and lack of fluidity have cursed the Devils in the early season. It’s a big reason why teams get off on runs against them. Something that Hurley and the coaching staff will have to hammer out before the beginning of a grueling conference schedule in the Big 12.  

Shooting Discrepancy

To say it took a wholesale effort for the Gators to expel the Sun Devils from this contest would be an overstatement. It essentially only took three Gator guards for the No. 9 team in the country to run away from ASU. Of the team’s 83 total points, 56 (ASU managed 66 as a unit) came from the combined veteran efforts of senior guards Walter Clayton Jr. and Will Richard, along with graduate Alijah Martin. It was a fervent frontcourt frenzy for Florida in Atlanta.

Clayton Jr. entered the contest as the Gators’ leading scorer and only accentuated his position atop the team’s scoring list. The crafty guard caught fire from deep, pouring in 25 points, highlighted by five made three-pointers. He showcased an impressive array of off-the-dribble and spot-up shooting abilities, as well as twice catching ASU’s star freshman big man Jayden Quaintance in rotation and using deft pump fakes to lose the nation’s leading shot blocker and fire away lead-extending threes.

Richard knocked down two consecutive threes about five minutes into the game, which was part of four consecutive Florida possessions ending in made threes by one of the three Gator guards. He continued his hot shooting to finish with 16 points and two makes from downtown while also putting pressure on Arizona State’s interior defense, driving in for a rim-shaking dunk about halfway through the second half. Martin added three threes and 15 points of his own to complete the lethal Florida trifecta that accounted for 67.5 percent of Florida’s total points.

As a whole, the Gators ended with 10 conversions from downtown on 33.3 percent shooting and shot a total of 47.8 percent from the field. This was a stark contrast from the Sun Devils, who shot under 30 percent from downtown and converted just 37 percent from the field. ASU’s offensive sets struggled to create open looks against Florida’s swarming man-to-man defense and refusal to switch on ball screens, which didn’t allow Arizona State to find favorable matchups and easier offense.

Rebounding Struggles

Rebounding hasn’t been a huge struggle for the Sun Devils this season. Their rotation contains lots of length and size, so grabbing rebounds has been relatively easy. Entering Saturday, ASU’s 29 defensive rebounds per game ranked 20th in the country. However, against Florida, the script completely flipped. 

After not playing a game in the last 11 days, the Sun Devils looked uncharacteristically lethargic and slow against the Gators, and it resulted in an embarrassing performance on the glass. ASU got outrebounded 47-27 on the night. At one point in the second half with the game already out of reach, the Gators had 12 offensive rebounds to the Sun Devils 15 defensive rebounds.

ASU was almost getting outrebounded on its own glass.

As a result of the rebounding differential, the Gators were able to get out fast, utizliing their quick guards to score points in transition. Florida scored 28 fast break points to ASU’s 11 and outscored the Sun Devils 14-9 on second chance opportunities. Out of the four players who grabbed eight rebounds in Saturday’s performance, three of themwere Gators and one was Quiantance. No other Sun Devil had more than 4.

ASU wasn’t even getting outsized by the Gators. Sure, the two six-foot-11 Gator forwards sophomores Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu got their boards, collecting eight each. But Florida’s top rebounder on the day was six-foot-two Martin, who collected a season-high 11 rebounds, turning that into 15 points and a team-high six assists.

As mentioned earlier, rebounding has not been a huge struggle for the Sun Devils this season. This blip on the radar could be just a result of a cross country tip after 11 days off, ASU is going to be seeing a lot more opponents with the quality of Florida coming up on their Big 12 schedule. With just one tune up game remaining, Hurley and his staff need to figure out if Saturday was just a blip or the beginning of a worrying trend on the glass.

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