Barely over a month ago, the exact act that took place at Desert Financial Arena on Thursday was flipped on its head. Overcoming a sizable second-half deficit on the road, Arizona State reeled in a victory out of the Bay with their 76-73 win over Stanford on Dec. 29, courtesy of a dominant final few minutes. Now, on Feb. 1, the Cardinal (11-9, 6-4 Pac-12) returned the favor in the desert, overwhelming ASU (11-10, 5-5) on both ends of the floor en route to a 71-62 win.
“Tough loss,” Hurley said. “We were right in the hunt. Right there. Got outplayed on both ends of the floor the last seven minutes.”
Dueling in a back-and-forth contest that featured 13 lead changes, ASU pulled ahead of Stanford in the middle of the second half, leading by as much as six with eight minutes to play off the back of a quality offensive night by Jamiya Neal, as well as contributions from Jose Perez and a resurgent performance by Kamari Lands. Picking up on a rare off night for Frankie Collins, this trio and the entire team effectively couldn’t continue their offensive rhythm into crunch time, where the Cardinal would stand tall to close the game on a 17-2 run in the final seven minutes.
“I felt like we hit a wall,” Hurley elaborated. “They got a few offensive rebounds and really punished in the lane late in the game with Angel and Raynaud. Credit to them, they closed the game out. Their defense bothered us, their zone, with their size, there weren’t a lot of seams. We did not move very well. We were pretty stagnant. We didn’t create any advantages against their defense late in the game. It was really both ends of the floor, and they did a better job than we did.”
Part of that wall Hurley talked about was as literal as it was figurative. Deploying his four-guard lineups as has been customary when ASU is at full strength, the Sun Devils simply didn’t have the length to match up with a Stanford team that ranks in the top 50 nationally in average height at 77 inches (KenPom). With the Sun Devils relying mostly on guards, it was a recipe for disaster almost from the beginning from offensive and defensive standpoints.
“When you have these big guys to go 6’1” against 6’6”, 6’7”, 6’9”, 6’10”, what do you think happens,” Hurley suggested. “There’s nowhere to go. You got to move. You got to change the sides of the floor. You got to get guys moving in different areas that you’re trying to change. We failed in that area. Playing that defense, you got to be able to make shots to stretch the defense to open up driving lanes or to get them out of the defense because you’re shooting them out of it. We weren’t able to do any of it.”
“It’s hard. They’re very tall,” Jamiya Neal added. “Sometimes on those crackdowns and, you crack it down on a 6’10, 7’0 (tall player). It’s kind of hard. I can’t just tip the ball over you. You have to double the post and shoot really well, so if you double, they kick out, so it definitely was a tough matchup. But we have to use our speed and athleticism to kind of pressure them so they don’t see that, so it kind of looks like it’s six defenders out there.”
The Sun Devils’ offensive deficiencies have been no secret this season. Still, with the height disadvantage that a face-off with the Cardinal poses, ASU’s inability to score was tabloid news, despite coming out of the gates firing with nine points in less than the three opening minutes of the contest. Stanford would quickly much the early Sun Devil surge as a see-saw battle ensued for more than half of the front 20. The closing minutes of the first half, though, might as well have been a prequel to the events of the second, as ASU managed just nine points in the final eight of the first. What allowed them to carry a 33-29 lead into the half despite the shooting struggles was a stout defensive effort that resembled the unit that held Stanford silent down the stretch in the first meeting between the teams.
This work on defense didn’t necessarily subside in the second half, and neither did Stanford’s, a nearly 40 percent three-point shooting team, struggle from beyond the arc (8-27 total). Opening up their offensive game plan in search of points, Jerod Haase utilized his edge in height to get his team more comfortable looks at the rim. With Shawn Phillips leaving the game for good late in the second half with a cut on his head, the Cardinal went to work on the smaller Sun Devils, with lengthy forwards Michael Jones and Bryan Angel scoring 18 and 19 points, respectively, while seven-footer Maxime Raynaud added 12 of his own.
“They’re in a good position in the conference,” Hurley noted. “They got good players. When you have guys that can put up those stat lines, you’re in pretty good shape.”
While forwards such as Alonzo Gaffney and Bryant Selebangue gave it their all to protect the paint, losing the presence of the seven-footer Phillips left a gaping hole defensively down low. It was symbolic of a lack of depth from an ASU roster that saw five players total 28 or more minutes against Stanford, 70 percent of the total game time.
“There’s been a common theme (lack of depth) in some of these games,” Hurley mentioned. “Late in the games, not having enough to close it.”
“I just try to tell the guys on the bench that I was there before,” Neal continued. “If you get an opportunity, you have to take it…”
Unfortunately for the Sun Devil bench, most would not get that opportunity on Thursday, something Hurley took the blame for himself.
“I think I need to force myself to try and trust the bench more and get fresh bodies on the floor more frequently,” he said. “That’s on me.”
The loss for ASU drops them to .500 in conference play despite roaring out to a 4-0 start just a few weeks ago. Seeming like years for the dejected locker room that sits in Desert Financial Arena today, there’s certainly a collective feeling of a need for improvement as they enter the final month of the regular season. But considering the circumstances of how ASU toppled Stanford in their house earlier this year, one wouldn’t be remiss in believing that the Cardinal had this date circled on the calendar.
“Just try to bounce back,” Neal said. “I think what goes around comes around. It happened to us there. We had a late surge. I guess it came back around to bite us this time, and they made a late surge. We couldn’t make any shots, we couldn’t get any stops, and it killed us. That’s what kind of happened down there (at Stanford), so I guess it’s just karma in a way.”
“We got to try to have more balance but also have more guys playing well in a game,” Hurley emphasized. “We didn’t have enough guys playing well tonight.”
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