Basketball is generally a tall man’s game. Yet, oftentimes, every guard in the country will tell you that height doesn’t measure heart. Case in point, despite an overwhelming disadvantage in the size department against SMU (6-4), Arizona State (6-2) scratched and clawed its way to a victory over the Mustangs, overcoming a 13-point second-half deficit in the process even in the absence of anchor center Shawn Phillips. Without a seven-footer available, which hasn’t been the case for most Hurley-led teams, the Sun Devils’ head coach admitted that when ASU trailed 63-50 with 10 minutes to play, even he was struggling to find any answers.
“We were lost on defense for a significant amount of time,” Hurley said. “They had 61 points or so at the ten-minute mark, which is a lot. We’ve been giving up close to that number for a game. We were not making multiple efforts, and they were getting to the paint.”
Having been the calling card of the Sun Devils in the early goings of the season, the Mustangs sped past ASU to easy baskets throughout the first half and much of the second. Without an interior force, ASU’s perimeter struggled to contain the quick guards of SMU, as Zhuric Phelps and Chuck Harris scored 24 and 17 points, respectively, out of the backcourt, with only three of their combined 16 makes from the field coming from the three-point line. It was a quick dropoff for ASU, who opened the game on an 18-8 run through the first eight minutes, only to see that lead dissipate by halftime into a four-point deficit, off the backbone of SMU’s 22-17 edge in rebounding, as well as an 8-3 advantage on the offensive glass.
“We set a bad tone around the 12-minute mark of the first half,” Hurley noted. “We had control of the game, then we stopped making multiple efforts. They were sending four or five to the glass.”
“It's hard sometimes,” Frankie Collins added. “You’re missing Shawn (Phillips Jr.), a shot blocker and someone who is a lob threat. I just think next man up, we got to step up even if some of our key guys got to step up even more. We just got to excel in what we do and just continue to play together and play hard.”
The Mustangs mob rebounding strategy got them the lead, but ASU’s counter to it was a Hurley staple: continue to play hard. How do you do that? Defend all 94 feet with the full-court press.
“We were at a point where there was no other choice,” Hurley said of the tactic. “The game was slipping away. It’s tough to commit to that pressure for the entire game and play that way with such a limited amount of players that you’re using that you can completely trust in a game like this against a quality opponent that was playing pretty well. We saved it until when we needed it the most.”
“Press makes us play hard,” Jose Perez put in. “It makes us put in effort, turn teams over.”
The Sun Devils got their fair share of stops but were stagnant offensively on the other end, leading to a 13-point deficit midway through the second half. To turn up the defensive ante, Hurley looked to two veterans to stabilize his defense. Alonzo Gaffney and Frankie Collins will be remembered in the box score for their 11 and 17 points, respectively, in the winning effort, but their command of the defensive pressure would be the tip of the spear in ASU’s comeback hopes.
“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 said. “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.”
“Turn people over,” Perez added. “Make people turn a couple of times. Let Zo (Alonzo Gaffney) or Frankie (Collins) get a deflection or a steal. He (Collins) leads the nation in steals, so he’s back there playing safety.”
The defensive activity of Gaffney and Collins is what stabilized the Sun Devil ship as it neared submersion mid-second half. As ASU turned up their defensive pressure, forcing turnovers and low-percentage shots out of SMU, they would make their lack of size, in essence, an advantage by beating the Mustangs' longer and bigger players down the court.
“If we ever did come up with the ball, we were ready to go in transition,” Hurley said. “We knew that was gonna be a key number (fastbreak points), and we clearly outplayed them in the transition game throughout the game. When we were able to get the rebound, there were a lot of opportunities for us.”
“I think a lot of teams, since we’re missing a lot of big guys, will try and play big lineups,” Collins added. “That might not really help you because we got some guys who can run the floor. We are athletic. If you want to play big, we got guards that will crack down and rebound so we’ll rebound. He’s always [points to Jose Perez] an outlet up the floor, so we’re going to run, trying to get easy baskets.”
“Right now, we're playing well in transition as a team,” Perez continued. “We’re sharing it when we get in transition better, in my opinion, in the half-court set. I feel like right now, we’re labeled as a transition team.”
Whether it’s their true offensive identity or not, Arizona State won on Wednesday because of its 22-7 lead on fastbreak points. Facing a cool-off after a hot start from the field, the Sun Devils not only broke out on rebounds to score but also resorted to the free throw line to chip the lead down. Having struggled mightily from the stripe thus far, ASU got to the line 42 times on Wednesday and converted on 32 of those attempts, including 17 in their second-half surge. Baiting the bigs of SMU into fouling on jump shots was a particular focus, and another benefit of ASU’s forced small-ball lineup that even though ASU lost the rebounding battle by 10, and were outscored in the paint 42-22, they still found a way to pull it out.
“Thought we showed a lot of heart, lot of resilience,” Hurley noted. “Never gave in. Didn’t look good when they got it to 13, but we just kept fighting. We were able to regain momentum in the game with our pressure. Gaffney was the point of that, really did a great job. Frankie had some steals, too. Frankie’s been playing at a high level.”
While Collins and Gaffney were heroic on defense, and Perez’s 20 points made the difference, Hurley knows ASU won’t be so fortunate with their play tonight as their non-conference schedule ramps up in the next few games.
“We gotta get healthy, man,” Hurley said, shaking his head. “We need Shawn Phillips back. We gotta get some good news on the waiver front (Adam Miller's appeal to the NCAA for immediate eligibility). We need help. We just need more help with the paint. That was pretty evident.
"They were punishing us for 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.”
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