Everyone expected that the Big 12 slate of ASU's schedule would be the proverbial gauntlet, and Arizona State’s 76-56 road loss to BYU was a bona fide rude welcome to the best conference in the nation. The Cougars led from wire to wire and saw their double-digit lead persist for large stretches of Tuesday afternoon, as the Sun Devils were fresh out of answers to contain their league foe, who was led by Richie Saunders’ 30 points.
Slow starts will do you in, especially on the road
The halftime deficit comeback win knack that ASU has, 47 such victories under Bobby Hurley, is undoubtedly impressive. But oftentimes, it is also indicative of Arizona State’s inability to come out strong and out of the gates and literally see themselves play catch-up for the entire contest. Midway through the first half, ASU was already trailing by ten points, and with 6:46 left in the first half, they were starting at a 16-point deficit.
True, ASU deserves credit for a strong close to the first half, where they outscored BYU 16-5 to bring down the halftime deficit to five points. But whatever momentum the visitors seemingly had quickly disappeared as BYU scored 21 points in the first seven minutes of the second half and squashed any hope that Arizona State had for one of their patent comeback wins. Arizona State had three turnovers in the first 1:40 of the second half, another painful slow start reminder, and that, coupled with their ice-cold shooting the entire afternoon, literally doomed this game's fate several minutes before the final buzzer.
Poor 3-point shooting falls right into the BYU zone defense’s lap
Poor shot selection is usually the biggest culprit in being unsuccessful in contending with a zone defense. Yet, Arizona State was able to get a lot of clean looks, but the ball was not falling for them through the net. Scoring just 10 points in the first 13.5 minutes of the game speaks for itself. And when you thought the aforementioned late first-half run was going to be a positive sign for the rest of the contest, here comes the second half, where the struggles only continued.
It is beyond obvious that this team's offense is fueled by its fast break points, but when you have a Cougar offense that was scoring at a maddening 60% clip in the second half, ASU's transition offense by default was going to be nearly non-existent. Even though the Sun Devils scored nearly half of their points in the paint they were effectively denied by the zone defense to establishing themselves in that area of the court and saw their inside-outside game that served them very well for most of their non-conference victories evaporate.
Sun Devils pay dearly for turnovers
A zone defense not only forces you to take more jump shots than you wish to, but it can also cause you to be very careless with the ball. That painful theory was manifested by Arizona State, which committed seven of its 10 turnovers in the second half. The literal margin of defeat was exhibited by BYU's 19 points scored off of turnovers.
Senior point guard Alston Mason did actually take care of the ball well and only had one turnover, but the struggles of the frontcourt players senior Basheer Jihad and freshman Jayden Quaintance, who each added three turnovers, were significant in the overall offensive struggles. It stands to reason that when you're trying to cut into a deficit, you can be prone to mistakes, but on a day where nothing went well for Arizona State, this hurdle was ultimately impossible to overcome.
Nice to see the freshmen step up, but…
Quaintance and his fellow freshmen, guard Joson Sanon and forward Ameir Ali, each had eight points, and the trio collectively shot 10-19 from the field. And especially when having a thin bench, the contributions by the last two players are always going to be substantial in the grand scheme of things. Alas, senior guard BJ Freeman's team-leading 11 points were too little too late, as were Mason's nine points. Basheer Jihad and junior guard Adam Miller combined for just 10 points, shooting 4-14, which is not a luxury that ASU can afford even against somewhat weaker teams in the Big 12 than BYU.
It has been a weird December schedule. Following an extremely busy November, ASU played in only three contests this month prior to their Big 12 opener. At the risk of hindsight, maybe there was too much rust to knock off. Truth be told, even the three games earlier in the month wins over San Diego and UMass, and the loss to top-ten Florida collectively paled in comparison performance-wise from the first eight games of the year.
Obviously, there’s nothing Arizona State can do to change the past, but having its veteran players be in more of a rhythm can help turn in better team performances in the next few weeks and not overload your younger players.
A hangover has to be avoided at all costs
And just like that, the good vibes surrounding ASU after a solid non-conference portion of their schedule have been greatly negated, at least for the time being, following this 20-point loss to a formidable BYU team but also one that isn’t considered to be one of the powerhouses in this league. This caliber of such teams, after a challenging home game against Colorado on Saturday, will show up next week as ASU travels to Kansas and hosts Baylor.
Whatever anticipated funk ASU may suffer now has to be shaken off quickly. As much as this contest may tempt you to employ the "burn the game film" approach, it is actually one where practices would absolutely have to focus on the various mistakes that ASU made in this contest to make sure that they can effectively flush out this game as quickly as possible out of their system.
With what the Sun Devils achieved in the non-conference portion and with the strength of the Big 12 league, ASU can afford to finish middle of the pack in the regular season standings with a conference record that is hovering very close to or at .500 and still have a realistic chance of hearing their name called on Selection Sunday. As modest as that feat may sound, it is still one that is going to require Arizona State to play a much better brand of basketball than what we witnessed on Tuesday afternoon.
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