ASU hits high note pretty fast
Sometimes college basketball can be perplexing.
All anyone needs to do to figure that out is watch the NCAA Tournament each year, when March becomes mired in “madness.”
But the regular season isn’t immune from that either.
Like when then-No. 1 Kentucky lost on its home floor to Evansville in November, or when then-No. 1 Duke also lost on its home floor to Stephen F. Austin later in the month.
Or just last week when then-No. 20 Memphis was blown out by 40 points at Tulsa.
Arkansas State University women’s Coach Matt Daniel’s Red Wolves experienced their own taste of college basketball’s ups and downs recently.
Last Thursday, ASU was blown out by 40 on the road against Louisiana-Lafayette (13-6, 6-2), and it had less than a 48-hour turnaround before it hosted another top-tier Sun Belt Conference team in Coastal Carolina (153, 5-2).
Heading into Saturday, the Red Wolves had dropped two consecutive games since their four-game win streak that had moved them to 4-1 in Sun Belt play.
But ASU instead orchestrated one of its biggest wins of the season with a 63-61 victory over the Chanticleers in Jonesboro thanks to a buzzerbeating put-back basket by sophomore guard Jireh Washington.
“Like I told the kids, we had every excuse not to go play,” Daniel said. “We got beat [by] 40, drove down there eight hours, drove back eight hours, got back at 4:20 on Friday morning, had a walk through Friday night, showed up and played on Saturday.
“We basically practiced on Saturday before we played, and for their ability to respond, I was really proud of.”
But how did the Red Wolves (8-11, 5-3) go from losing by 40 to one of the best teams in the conference, to beating another one less than 48 hours later?
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “I mean, we’re inconsistent. I don’t think [Louisiana-Lafayette is] that good, and I don’t think we’re that bad. It just kind of was a perfect storm, and we weren’t into it. When you’re not into it, those things happen.”
The benefit for ASU this week is that it didn’t have a weekday game and will be fully rested once it faces Louisiana-Monroe (3-16, 1-7) on Saturday in Monroe, La., at noon Central.
“We’ve got to be solid,” Daniel said. “We’ve got to be more solid in everything we’re doing.”