Late first half struggles bled into the second half, but effective free throw shooting and stout defensive play down the stretch culminates with Arizona State’s (6-2) fourth straight win and 41st comeback victory under head coach Bobby Hurley, as the Sun Devils edge SMU (6-4) 76-74 in Tempe.

Junior guard Frankie Collins scored ten points in the first half, connecting on his two three-pointers, which led ASU to an 18-8 lead. The point guard, who this week was ranked third nationally in steals, continued to show his well-rounded game and the fruits of his labor in his offensive improvement in the off-season.

“He (Collins) put a lot of work in on his shot,” Hurley said. “You can see he’s making timely shots. The last two games, he’s shot the three well. He’s hitting his jump shots; that was kind of the missing piece. He’s such a good player on defense, so athletic, he’s good in the open court, willing passer, leader, he’s kinda got everything you look for at the position. He’s starting to trust his shot more; the ball is going in, and you see him playing more confidently.”

The size disadvantage for the hosts, which has mainly been caused by the injury absences of seven-foot center Shawn Phillips Jr. as well as 6-9 forward Zane Meeks resulted not only in the Mustangs outscoring ASU 32-18 since that double-digit ASU lead but having total control down low scoring 20 points in the paint, holding a 22-17 rebounding advantage, including an 8-3 edge on the offensive end, all leading to a Mustang 40-36 halftime lead.

“It’s all injury-related, and it’s hard,” Hurley noted regarding rebounding challenges. “Two key rotation players, one starter that’s a 7-footer who you think could assist in that area. We’re asking Bryant (Selebangue) and Zo (Gaffney) to tangle with these big guys, try and keep them off the glass.”

“They were punishing us on missed shots. We were not being physical. We gotta make sure we don’t go through stretches where teams aren’t able to take advantage of us like they did around the basket. Gotta be something we focus on moving to our next game.”

Arizona State came strong out of the gates in the second half and tied the game at 46 with 15:45 left to go in the game. SMU countered with a 12-0 run and later were ahead by 13 points, 63-50, with 11:28 left in the game. The prospects of a comeback win may have looked bleak, but the Sun Devils knew that their approach to tilt the scales in their favor had to be methodical.

“Just chip it down by media (timeouts), 10-minute mark it was like 63-50 or something like that,” Jose Perez said. “Just get it down to like six, then the next media, tie game. By the time the game is over, we should be on top.”

The relentlessness of the ASU defense, led by Gaffney and Collins, would reverse ASU’s fortunes. The Sun Devils forced 11 turnovers in the second half, including nine steals, along with three blocked shots. Gaffney’s length, plus Collins’s quickness employed in the full court press, engineered a 13-2 run to tie the game at 66 apiece with 5:25 left and, in the midst of that run, also contributed to a four-minute scoring drought.

“When you have Gaffney on the ball, with his length, kicking the basketball out of bounds, by our numbers, he had ten deflections in the game, so the inbounder doesn’t even know if he can throw the ball in bounds,” Hurley explained. “Then you have Frankie Collins as the center fielder, and he’s got really great instincts of shooting a passing lane. Those two guys are where it all starts. They were both really good at it today. We were relentless to keep stacking stops and forcing them to turn it over. We just kept feeding off that, and it was really great to see.”

While Arizona State never trailed in the last 5:25 minutes of the contest, it also didn’t make a field goal in the last 3:47 minutes of the game, but converting 6-9 free throws in that stretch was enough to hold off the visitors for the precious narrow win.

“It (press) has a lot to do with us trying to take control of the game,” Collins stated. “I feel like that’s our way of taking control of the game. Sometimes, I feel like when teams are outscoring us, it’s because we’re not turning them over enough or we don’t have enough pressure on the ball. With Zo being at the top (Alonzo Gaffney) and me being the steal guy, I think that can get us some easy buckets and turn the whole game around.”

Perhaps the resiliency of the Sun Devils under Hurley is a common sight, as evidenced by the large number of comeback victories over the years. Nonetheless, this was a victory where ASU saw its opponent shoot 46.7 percent from the field in the second half, while the Sun Devils had to heavily rely on their transition defense as they shot just 1-8 from three-point range in the second half and 39.3 percent overall from the field during that period.

“I got winning players who never gave up,” Hurley commented. “This game reminded me a lot of the UMass-Lowell game (earlier this season), how it all played out down the stretch. We were relentless to keep stacking stops and forcing them to turn it over. We just kept feeding off that, and it was really great to see.”

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