The mantra for Arizona State throughout the Bobby Hurley era has been “Guard U.” It’s plastered on the wall of the Weatherup Center, ASU’s on-campus facility, and has been worn on shirts in the last couple of years. But as the Sun Devils struggled to defend anyone at any point during last year’s disaster season, the mantra most closely associated with the Hurley era in Tempe has largely gone abandoned.
Performances like Saturday’s Senior Day showing from super senior guard Marreon Jackson and the rest of Arizona State’s cast make a compelling case for an altered return to that mantra. Watching this Sun Devil defense is legitimately entertaining, but -- just workshopping here -- a new mantra of “Guarded U” feels apropos for this group.
On Saturday, that potential mantra showed with a career-high six steals from Jackson, representing nearly a third of ASU’s 21 turnovers forced. Multiple times throughout the afternoon, Jackson ripped the ball away from Stanford players like a bully on a playground.
“To be honest with you,” Jackson began to explain his defensive performance, “I don’t like defense that much, but I love scoring. I love scoring. I love scoring so much that like even me -- I’m gonna try to take the ball from someone, so I can get a little easy layup and get myself going.”
After an early gut punch from a Stanford offense that started 4 of 4 from 3-point range, the Sun Devil defense settled in and put more pressure on the Cardinal. Stanford junior forward Spencer Jones couldn’t miss early but wound up cooling off despite getting similar looks from 3-point range.
There is admittedly variance in three-point shooting -- particularly at the collegiate level --, but an increased defensive presence from the Sun Devils caused turnovers over and over again for the Cardinal. While the 10-for-26 shooting from 3 represented more than half of the Cardinal’s makes and allowed them to hang around for much of the afternoon, ASU’s consistent defensive effort eventually won out.
While ASU couldn’t take much advantage of the 12 turnovers forced in the first half, scoring only seven points off of them, that dam eventually burst in the second half.
During the final 20 minutes, Jackson’s ferocious defense created the easy scores he talked about following the win. Given how the Sun Devils matched up with the Cardinal, the former Toledo guard was often matched up with Stanford freshman wing Harrison Ingram. As Ingram’s primary defender, Jackson held the talented freshman to 2 of 10 shooting and a seven turnover performance.
“I think it’s in his DNA to want to guard and want to defend,” said Hurley of Jackson after the seventh win in eight games -- and fourth straight for the Sun Devils. Jackson did more than just steal the ball, adding 18 points to go along with six rebounds and six assists. “He’s got really good instincts. He’s played a lot of basketball, so he knows positionally where to be and reading what the offense is trying to do and making a calculated -- I guess you would say gamble, but he’s in the right seams.”
Forced into slower tempos, the Sun Devils really came to grips with being a defensive-oriented team in late December. Because of that focus and a collective buy-in from the group, ASU is up to 22nd in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric. In the seven years that Bobby Hurley has coached the Sun Devils, his group has never been better than 64th in that statistic.
“The one thing that I will say is our team has been very consistent on defense regardless of what’s happened on the other end of the floor,” said Hurley after ASU held Stanford to 37.3 percent from the floor Saturday. “We’ve been holding teams in the 30s (percent) for a bunch of games. If we keep guarding that way, then we certainly should have a good chance.”
At the height of the struggles this season, Hurley lamented that there was no consistency to ASU’s problems. Now, there’s a consistent recipe to the Sun Devils’ success.
“As cliché as it sounds, defense wins championships,” said super senior forward Kimani Lawrence. “We hang our hat on defense; we take pride in our defense, and our defense saves us in a lot of games when our offense isn’t flowing. As long as we keep that up and keep trusting what we’re doing all year, anything can happen.”
The marriage of better offense to combine with consistent defense has spurred the Sun Devils to seven wins in their last eight games. Because of Washington State’s win over Oregon, Arizona State will meet Stanford once again in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament Wednesday.
“What we’ve been able to do is pretty remarkable considering where we are and just how tough this league is especially,” said Hurley. “I have a lot of confidence in what we’re doing, and it doesn’t guarantee us anything -- but I talked to the guys about winning every game, and the more we win the less likelihood is that we’ll find a way to lose.”
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