Arizona State (6-5) suffered their third straight loss against Northwestern (9-2) 65-46 in the Jerry Colangelo Hall of Fame Invitational in downtown Phoenix. Continuous offensive struggles along with a lack of team energy doomed the Sun Devils from the jump. Though some energy returned in the second half, the hole that was dug was too deep for the Sun Devils to crawl out of as ASU will enter conference play on a losing streak.
Here are our five takeaways:
Offensive struggles continue to doom the Devils:
Over the last two games, ASU has been held under 60 points which over the course of the season has only happened four times. It is known that Bobby Hurley’s teams are known for their defensive prowess, but no one can win basketball games without at the end of the day outscoring your opponent. It seemed as if the second half struggles against TCU rolled over against Northwestern. ASU scored a mere 13 points in the entire first half.
“We’re not making shots, were missing free throws,” Hurley said. “Across the board, I think we were tied with one of the Northwestern players at halftime and that’s how bad we were on that end of the floor.”
Besides looking at the score itself, it was clear the team was not jiving whatsoever. Ball movement was limited as when the ball did get in the air, it was not going in. ASU shot a horrific 5-26 or 19% from the field. Adding insult to injury, ASU was 2-13 from beyond the arc which in turn killed any energy the Sun Devils had entering the matchup.
It should be mentioned that to end the first half, Northwestern ended things on a 11-1 run.
The second half although somewhat better the eye did not have much of an ascension. The Devils shot one percent better from the field and their only saving grace was shooting 5-13 instead of 1-5 from the free throw line in the second half.
In either half, it was also made obvious this was no single player’s game. Frankie Collins was the only Sun Devil with double digits barely squeaking by at the 10-point mark. Nothing worked for the Sun Devils offensively as Hurley’s squad needs to activate their shooters ahead of conference play.
“We got to look at it, evaluate it, and see what changes we need to make and how we need to play on that end of the floor just to give ourselves a chance to stay in the game,” Hurley added.
Lack of energy has the team trailing from tip-off:
If the stats above were not an indication of the energy involved in the contest against Northwestern, the body language of the ASU players were a clear indication. Basketball is a game of runs and momentum, but when there is nothing to build on, there is nothing to be built.
It seems as if the hangover from the gut punch felt in San Diego, and the second punch to the gut in Texas last week has killed any mentality the Sun Devils had. Both losses before this one against Northwestern were huge blows to the morale of ASU, and although getting Adam Miller back from ineligibility seemed to shed some light, it has not been enough.
Since the tip-off of today’s contest, there was no substantial amount of emotion shown even down to a passionate high five. When you add adversity to that, it seemed that we were watching dead men walking. There was no fire or response from the Sun Devils which has even been apparent to Collins.
“As a team right now, mentally were soft,” Collins said. “We don’t fight back when people punch us in the mouth. Sometimes it’s hard to give us that extra motivation but sometimes it’s not, it depends on how we respond.”
ASU continues to get out-rebounded:
Aside from the aforementioned offensive struggles, rebounding contributed to that but also the amount of second chance points for Northwestern. In the first half alone, Northwestern more than doubled the amount of rebounds ASU had by a score of 27-12. Only five of those first half rebounds were offensive but it did turn into nine second chance points for the Wildcats.
In totality, ASU was outrebounded 41-31 as ASU is desperately missing any sort of frontcourt play from the injured Shawn Phillips Jr. and Zane Meeks who are both out due to injury. As Alonzo Gaffney is not a true center, this is another area where the Sun Devils are missing not only on second chance points but effectiveness to swing the momentum and get the ball back on the defensive front.
Alonzo Gaffney is still nowhere to be found:
This was mentioned last week in the loss against TCU, but graduate forward Alonzo Gaffney has yet to make a serious or in other words consistent impact as a veteran player.
Gaffney who has shown serious upside as a lengthy forward was said by Hurley to have made serious strides over the offseason. This is great news as Gaffney is one of the older members of the team as well as one of the few who have been around the program for multiple seasons. Nonetheless, it hands materialized as advertised.
There was hope as Gaffney against Vanderbilt dropped 19 points making five three-point shots on the night. Not to mention Gaffney added four blocks which was a true representation of being a defensive threat along with being a threat offensively.
Since then, it has not been a pretty road for Gaffney. Gaffney in his defense has had to plug into a somewhat altered center roll. Gaffney is not big enough or physical enough to bring the physicality to the paint when his natural game is also being a shooter from 15 feet and beyond.
Contextually speaking, Gaffney had no points, shooting 0-4 from the field. Gaffney added only one rebound as Gaffney was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Gaffney would eventually in the second half be replaced by Bryant Selebangue and Akil Watson as ASU searched for answers in the paint. Gaffney will have to find his footing as injuries hopefully begin to get better, and the team needs another leader besides Collins going into conference play.
Can the Sun Devils respond going into conference play:
For any team, it is difficult to bounce back from multiple losses, let alone three in a row in games that were possibly winnable at some point. From the jump mentioned earlier, ASU was simply not ready for Northwestern. Hurley was candid about it.
“I didn’t do a good job of getting the team ready for this game,” Hurley said. “The physicality of the game, I think we forced them to miss some shots early in the game, but we couldn’t put the ball in the basket.”
Although there has been a lot of talk in the airspace of Hurley's coaching as of late, Collins was quick to counter Hurley's words with nodding his head in the post-game presser. On top of that quickly redirecting a question.
“It’s not the coaches’ fault,” Collins stated. “As players, we got to go out there and perform. They (coaches) give us a great gameplan before the game and we just have to execute it.”
This is the first time under Hurley that ASU has lost three straight in the month of December. Hurley was also quick to mention that last year’s team around this time compared to this year’s team is night and day. A reminder that ASU was 11-3 headed into January with wins over Colorado, Creighton, Michigan, and VCU to name a few.
ASU is desperately looking for leadership along with consistent scoring. How much the return of Miller has changed the flow of the team is still very early to tell, but something needs to change if this team wants a shot at the NCAA tournament. There cannot be much more lackluster energy or lack in certain aspects if this team wants to be competitive in a conference that isn’t as star studded as it’s been in the past.
“We’re not having a great season right now, but we're going to fight for the program,” Hurley said. “Do what we have to do to change this and see who wants to move forward with us and be about the right things and who doesn’t. We’ll find out a lot in the next couple of weeks.”
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