In its second game in Atlantis, Arizona State (2-4) was unable to overcome a hot end to the first half by the Syracuse Orange (3-2) in the fourth meeting all-time between the two sides, falling 92-84 despite a valiant second-half effort.
Much like their matchup against No. 6 Baylor on Wednesday night, the Sun Devils started out strong; trading shooting blows with the Orange across the first portion of the first half.
Juco transfer forward Alonzo Gaffney had two jumpers from the free-throw area, and super senior forward Kimani Lawrence was making moves for buckets under the basket. Toledo transfer guard Marreon Jackson found some success with a pair of threes in the first half. Arizona State traded the lead with Syracuse for the first 14 minutes, making tough shots from outside with the occasional bucket coming from the interior.
The Sun Devils were 12-20 from the field and 4-8 from three-point range with just under six minutes to play. They were attacking Syracuse’s tried-and-tested zone defense and poking holes in it, but the offensive production then came to a screeching halt after sophomore forward Jalen Graham closed the lead to two and Hurley called timeout.
The final six minutes of the first half were dominated by the Orange, embarking on an 18-2 run, largely riding the hot hand of senior guard Buddy Boeheim, who scored 17 points on 6-10 shooting with one make from range. The size of the basket seemed to shrink for ASU, as it struggled to make shots and carried over the faults to the defensive side of the floor.
“At that point, we had opportunities,” Jackson said postgame. “We missed shots, left people open on our defensive assignments, and didn’t sprint back on defense. We were getting really lazy towards halftime.”
“We talked about finishing a half better (after Baylor) and how important that was; that was my message to the team at the six-minute mark during that timeout,” Hurley explained. “We got some pretty open threes and didn’t connect, we had poor transition defense, and we allowed them to get in a good rhythm. We were really cool in the first half. We hit shots early, and we were very casual; we did not have any grit or any toughness on defense.”
Arizona State came out of the halftime break lively, scoring 13 points in the first five minutes. Illinois State transfer guard DJ Horne led the way from deep – he scored six three-pointers against Baylor – he followed up the performance on Thursday with four marks from range.
Jackson and Muhammad also got into a rhythm in the final 20 minutes, making ten three-pointers, albeit on 27 attempts, between the two of them. With the three guards, along with a second-half wake up from Boston College transfer Jay Heath, who had 10 points after scoring none in the first half, firing in shots from deep and Lawrence and Graham operating down low, Arizona State chipped away at the lead.
ASU scored 54 in the second half, going 11-23 from three-point land. After an abysmal first half in which ASU was 4-16 from beyond the arc, Hurley said the early makes created a false sense of security, which plagued the team until they fixed their problems. By then, it was too late.
“We made three of our first four, and then we hit one for our next 12 remaining threes in the first half,” Hurley said. “The second half, we played with our hair on fire and with a lot of intensity, and we were scrambling.”
The defensive intensity also picked up, as Hurley opted to go into the full-court press, taking notes from Syracuse’s loss on Wednesday to VCU, which pressed the Orange hard for 40 minutes.
“By that point, we were in bigtime scramble mode,” Hurley said. “We were trying to trap and run around and generate steals.”
With just under three minutes to play, a Muhammad three closed the deficit to single digits, the first time ASU trailed by such a margin since there were four minutes to play in the first half. Yet the Syracuse starting five put the game away in the final moments. The starting lineup for the Orange generated 90 of 92 points across the stretch.
Jackson led all ASU scorers with 17 points, four rebounds, and seven assists, while Horne had 14 points and a pair of dimes. Muhammad had 12 points, and Lawrence had a double-double consisting of 11 points and 13 boards.
With three straight losses under ASU’s belt, Hurley’s team has some self-evaluating to do. When they are down late, there’s no lack of fight in Hurley’s team; they just need to show more of that intensity when they’re not trailing by 15 points with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game.
“You have to play two halves,” the Sun Devil head coach said. “You can’t afford to build that type of deficit; expect to erase it and have a legitimate chance to win. I have a level of respect for the guys that competed the way they did in the second half, but why can’t you do that in the first half? That’s on us to demand that. We have to play both ends of the floor with that intensity for 40 minutes; you can’t play a game like this for 20 minutes.”
“(In the final 20 minutes) Maybe we stopped thinking about ourselves and (started) thinking about what we need to do to help Arizona State win, and the ball seemed to go into the basket a little more often. So maybe everyone should internalize those feelings and bring that to the table, and maybe everyone will shoot better.”
Arizona State has one game left to play in Atlantis. The losses to Baylor and Syracuse put it as one of two teams, alongside Loyola-Chicago as the only teams in the Bahamas yet to win a game. ASU and Loyola-Chicago will tip-off on Friday at 5 pm Arizona time in a game that will air on ESPNews
