Sun Devils overcome sluggish first half in home win

TEMPE – Entering Tuesday night’s game, Arizona State, and Longwood were 346 spots apart in the NCAA RPI rankings.

At halftime, however, just five points separated the third-best team in the country from the third-worst.

Though the No. 3 Sun Devils exploded for a monstrous second half and a 95-61 victory at Wells Fargo Arena on Tuesday, coach Bobby Hurley’s post-game praise was limited after watching his team stumble out of the gates for a third consecutive game.

“If we had done [that first half] in some other games, it might have been a different result,” Hurley said. “We have to clean that up. It’s mainly on me. I didn’t create enough of an edge to start this game and I have to do better at getting us ready to play.”

Longwood (3-9) opened the game in a zone defense, a tactic becoming more commonly used against the Sun Devils (11-0) dynamic offense during their still-undefeated start to the season.

In the past, ASU has relied on streaky shooting to spook teams back into man-on-man defense. But in the first half on Tuesday, the Sun Devils made just 33 percent of their shots, highlighted by a woeful 4-of-15 clip from 3-point range.

“I thought in the first half, they were going deep in the shots clocks and it was becoming just a half court, grind it out game,” Hurley said. “That’s not who we are.”

Longwood, ranked No. 349 of 351 teams in the RPI, has not beaten a Division I team this year, yet had the score tied at 30-30 less than two minutes from halftime.

"I thought that we dictated the tempo in the first half because the zone that we played,” Longwood coach Jayson Gee said. “One of the things that challenge our guys is we have to play a tough 2-3 zone. I felt like that was going to be the defense that we needed to employ to get the tempo in our favor.”

Hurley was forced to make halftime adjustments. None proved bigger than the decision to unleash a full-court press defensively.

“We think, selectively moving forward, we can sprinkle this (full-court pressure) in to create tempo that we’re looking for,” Hurley said, after watching his team generate 10 second half steals in the full court defense.

Playing at a more familiar pacier tempo, the Sun Devils offense came to life. ASU exploded for 60 second-half points, the second highest scoring half the program has had in the last 15 seasons.

“At halftime, we talked about getting into gaps more and not just passing the ball around; to dribble and draw help and kick out and not forget about the backline,” Hurley said. “I think we incorporated getting the ball to Romello and also Lake on the lobs in the second half and didn’t just solely rely on the 3-point shot.”

Sophomore forward Mickey Mitchell made the biggest impact, using his versatile 6-foot-7 size and elite penetration passing to break down the Longwood zone defense. He finished the night with 12 points (a career high), five rebounds, two blocks and two steals.

“Mickey, in the high post, was a better move,” Hurley said. “Just because he can pass well and he can drive to the hoop from that position.”

Quiet for most of the opening half, the anxious 9,036-person crowd came to life during a 16-1 second-half run from ASU that was capped with a reverse dunk from Mitchell, an Ohio State transfer playing in just his third-ever game for the Sun Devils (Mitchell was forced to sit out the first 8 games of the season due to NCAA transfer rules).

“Coach has told us, as a group, to be aggressive in the second half, attack the zone,” Mitchell said. “I thought we did a better job of that, finding (De’Quon) Lake, Kodi (Justice) cutting down there. (We) got more open shots.”

ASU’s backcourt caught fire down the stretch too.

Senior guard Tra Holder led the Sun Devils with 20 points and six steals, senior Kodi Justice nailed four shots from behind the arc to finish with 18 points, and freshman Remy Martin tallied 13 points, nine assists and seven rebounds off the bench.

Martin added an exclamation point to the second-half turnaround with a between the legs dribble-drive to the hoop for a contested lay-up finish in the game’s final minute.

“People get behind Remy. It’s hard not to like watching him play and he had a big second half for us,” Hurley said, before adding: “When the ball is in his hands, you don’t really know what he is going to do. It’s usually very good but it’s always very interesting.”

It was another example of the sheer talent Hurley’s guards possess. The third-year coach’s next challenge is getting the group to start games the way they finish them. After only looking like “Guard U” for half of Tuesday night’s game, Hurley knows a more complete effort will be needed once Pac-12 play rolls around in two weeks.

“We will focus on ways to start a little better,” he said. “We can’t just play that second half in these games the way that we’ve been doing, especially with the schedule and the way things are going to become a lot more difficult moving forward.”