Sun Devils looking for revenge against talented TCU squad

(Photo Credit: Alyssa Buruato/WCSN)

With just over two seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, TCU men’s basketball’s then-sophomore forward Jakobe Coles sank a floater over the Arizona State men’s basketball team. The bucket gave the Horned Frogs a 72-70 lead in the first round of West Region play in March Madness, and two ticks later, head coach Bobby Hurley and his team’s 2022-23 season was over.

At 7 pm CST on Saturday night in the US LBM Coast-to-Coast Challenge, Hurley and ASU (6-3) will get their second shot against the TCU (7-1) team that beat him and sent his squad packing, albeit with a near-nonidentical cast of characters from the year prior. Junior guards Frankie Collins and Jamiya Neal, in addition to graduate big Alonzo Gaffney, are the only returning players who logged minutes in that loss last season.

Hurley will no doubt be aiming to avenge last year’s defeat at the hands of head coach Jamie Dixon and the Horned Frogs (7-1). However, ASU (6-3) will have its work cut out for it against a future Big 12 opponent.

Going into Saturday night’s tilt, a positive for the Sun Devils is that they rank 14th in the entire country in fast break points, scoring 17.7 points per game in transition. This is due to Hurley often deploying a diamond high-press scheme late in games this year, making it challenging for teams to even break through to half-court, creating a lot of easy chances for ASU.

The negative for Hurley’s side is that while the Sun Devils pride themselves on their fast-paced offense, TCU’s transition game is even better. The Horned Frogs aren’t just better than ASU on the break, but are the best in the country by a significant margin. Their 27.8 fast break points a game ranks first in the nation by a 6.8-point margin. For comparison, second-place Samford’s 21 per game is the same distance from 55th-ranked North Carolina Central in that category as it is to TCU.

The Horned Frogs’ high-paced style manifests itself in many different ways on the stat sheet. All three of their leading scorers on the year — senior forward Emanuel Miller, Coles and senior guard Micah Peavy — have capitalized on the easy buckets, all over 50 percent shooting so far this season.

Additionally, Peavy averages over three assists per game along with senior guards Jameer Nelson Jr. and senior guards Jameer Nelson Jr and Avery Anderson III, with Miller averaging 2.9. In comparison, none of the Sun Devils’ four leading scorers average over 48 percent shooting from the field, and only junior guard Frankie Collins and graduate guard Jose Perez average over two assists per game.

Collins will likely be designated to shepherd the Sun Devil’s revenge attempt — a quick glance at ASU’s statistical leaderboard tells why. Collins averages 13.6 points, 3.7 assists, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.3 steals a game, all team leads. Gaffney’s 1.7 blocks a game leads the group in the only major category Collins doesn’t. The point guard’s 0.4 blocks per game is, however, good for second on the team among players with more than three games played to date.

The Sun Devils will collectively need to focus on improving their free-throw accuracy if they want to escape Texas with their seventh win of the season. The last time they took the court against the San Diego, they shot 58.3 percent from the line in an 89-84 loss, and have only averaged 61.8 percent over the whole season to date.

On paper, it seems like a tall task for ASU to claim a victory over the weekend, but all that separated these two teams less than nine months ago was two points. Hurley and his group will look to keep pace with the fast-breaking Horned Frogs and swing this matchup back in their favor.