The last time the Sun Devils squared off with the Cardinal on the hardwood, ASU was reeling from a demoralizing three-game losing streak that had stunted their 6-2 start to the season. In the conference opener in their final trip to Palo Alto as Pac-12 foes, Arizona State snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against Stanford, overcoming a double-digit deficit with five minutes to play to pull out a 76-73 win.
It would be the first win of a four-game run that launched ASU off the mat and into pole position in the Pac-12 before stumbling at Washington and at home with UCLA. Seemingly righting the ship with a 15-point victory over USC, ASU ended up foundering in its trip to the Beaver State, dropping road contests against both Oregon and Oregon State by a combined 32 points.
“The record is what it is the last five games,” head coach Bobby Hurley commented. “I wasn’t pleased with how we defended in either game (in Oregon), really. Not taking anything away from either of those teams…they played fantastically. We didn’t get the necessary stops. We were allowing teams to shoot too high percentages against us…This is not acceptable. This is not who we are. Our defense didn’t show up to play.”
“Oregon State, we caught them at the wrong time,” Jose Perez added. “They beat Arizona, and once you get confidence like that beating the number nine team in the country, the rim is three times bigger. Players are making shots. That team was rolling, and that’s what they did against us. We just didn’t play enough defense to win that game.”
Even with the defensive letdowns in the northwest, the opportunity to balance themselves on the beam of conference contention remains.
“We tried to reemphasize that we’re one game out of first place right now despite what happened in Oregon,” Hurley said. “We’re right there. Now we’re home for two games.”
Desert Financial Arena may not top anyone’s list of most intimidating home court advantages around, even with the “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” sign above the visitor’s tunnel. However, the Sun Devils have been exceptional on their home floor this season with an 8-1 record, with the only defeat coming in controversial fashion to UCLA. Now back in the valley for a two-game homestand with Stanford and California, ASU will be eyeing the season sweep of both schools, with the Cardinal up first on Thursday night. Having gone down sizably at Maples Pavillion before a furious comeback saved the result, the Sun Devils have now taken their last three contests with Jerod Haase’s group by a combined 11 points, signifying Stanford’s restless attitude to snap the head-to-head drought.
“Big challenge because both of those teams, when we played them in the bay, both had double-digit leads in the second half,” Hurley recalled. “Stanford multiple times went ahead ten, went ahead eight. We stuck in the game, pretty resilient in that game, and able to fight back and find a way to win.”
Since letting go of that late December contest with ASU, the Cardinal recovered enough to capture victories in five of their last eight games, with three of those wins coming against UCLA, Washington, and Oregon State, all teams who have gotten the best of the Sun Devils in the last month, not to mention Stanford’s 100-point explosion in an upset of Arizona just days after its loss to ASU.
While the Cardinal have played to an uninspiring 10-9 overall record and just 5-4 in the Pac-12, they are dead even with the Sun Devils in the conference and need this win as much as the Sun Devils to keep any sort of postseason hopes alive. Luckily for Stanford, they have a star to lead them in seven-foot center Maxime Raynaud. A unicorn-like forward who can put the ball on the deck, Raynaud leads the Cardinal in both points and rebounds per game and recorded a double-double in the team’s prior meeting with the Sun Devils. To combat the skills of the French wunderkind, Hurley knows he’ll have to match size with size, and in a favorable break, his tallest player hit his stride in the last few games.
“Shawn Phillips was one of the bright spots in the Oregon State game,” Hurley noted. “The way he finished the game, he was able to attack the basket, posting up aggressively, going after the offensive glass. If we can get more of an inside presence like that from him on a relatively consistent basis, that would give our offense more balance. We could throw the ball inside, play inside-out.”
Playing inside-out and being able to make shots from outside the paint will also be key for the Sun Devils on Thursday, considering their opponent thrives in that category. This season, Stanford shoots 39.5 percent from three as a team, ninth-best in the entire country. A pair of Jones’s, Spencer and Michael, both shoot well into the 40s from beyond the arc, and Spencer in particular, has given ASU problems in the past with his slashing abilities as a six-foot-seven point forward.
Another forward who possesses a matchup advantage with ASU is senior Brandon Angel. Averaging nearly 13 points per game on highly efficient shooting numbers, Angel gave the Sun Devils all they could handle with 15 in December, and his wide frame helps him stay in front of any ball-handler while also being able to blow past smaller lineups, such as ASU’s. Angel may not be Stanford’s best player, but he certainly is their biggest threat against the Sun Devils. How do you neutralize a threat? Counterstrike. Hurley’s orders? Jose Perez.
“Recently, he was really good on offense for us, particularly in a game that we struggled at Oregon State,” Hurley said of the super-senior. “He had two very good games at that end of the floor for us. He’s great with his experience, all the college basketball he’s played, been in a lot of games. He’s a unique type of player, brings something different to what we bring on the floor.”
“Coach Hurley is one of the best coaches in putting me in the right spots at the right time,” Perez complimented. “Knowing when to go, when to pass, when to make a play.”
Matching Angel’s build with his own unique skillset, Perez will likely get this assignment on defense and need to limit Angel’s contributions inside the arc to force Stanford into longer possessions, a style the Cardinal little prefer as the 70th fastest team in the country per KenPom.
In the backcourt, Stanford is just as formidable, with a blend of talent and experience. Kanaan Carlyle began his breakout with 12 points off the bench against ASU in December and has since dropped 20+ points in three separate contests, including a 28-point outburst on Arizona. Jared Bynum flanks him as the primary ball-handler, who played the same role with the 2022 Big East regular season champion Providence Friars, who is now the Cardinal’s top assister with six a night.
Despite an inconspicuous start to the season, Stanford has plenty of talent, enough to turn their season around with a month to go until Vegas. As a prolific shooting team, the Sun Devils will have to tighten up a defensive unit that sleepwalked in and out of both Oregon games, but what might be more important is their offensive game to match the Stanford sharpshooters.
“We can’t allow our inability to make shots to bleed into our defense,” Hurley related. “I think that was the case against Oregon State. We were so bad at perimeter shooting in that game, and it impacted our ability to get stops.”
“92 points in a total of two halves, not gonna win many games like that,” Perez noted. “We know what we have to do defensively. Just got to put an extra pep in our step, and we should be ready to go.”
Stopping scoring eventually leads to stopping the bleeding in the loss column, which ASU is desperate to do this weekend if they want even a sliver of hope at the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re in the hunt,” Hurley emphasized. “We’re right there. There’s a lot to play for. I’m sure most of the teams in the league think they’re still in it based on how tightly packed everything is. There’s still hope that we could get on a run and make a surge. My last two years here we played really well in February. Hoping we can recapture some of that here as we go through this month.”
“We ain’t down,” Perez continued. “We ain’t out of it. We think we can make a run at this thing.”
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