Devils put focus on rebounds, shooting
SALT LAKE CITY — It wasn’t so much Wednesday’s final score that irritated Arizona State coach Herb Sendek. Colorado likely will be an NCAA Tournament team, after all. And Boulder is one of the Pac-12’s tougher places to play.
It’s how it all unfolded. Statistically, it was among ASU’s worst efforts in eight years under Sendek. The minus-21 rebounding differential was the Sun Devils’ worst in 252 games. (This, coming off a minus-19 effort five days earlier against rival Arizona.) In addition, ASU’s 31.5 percent shooting in the 61-52 loss to Colorado was its fifth-worst percentage over the same span.
That’s made for three long days, a look-in-themirror stretch as ASU prepared for tonight’s Pac-12 contest against Utah, a pesky team that gives everyone fits, especially in the Jon M. Huntsman Center. At 19-7 and 8-5 in the conference, the Sun Devils’ NCAA Tournament hopes remain
strong, but as the regular season winds down, coaches like to see encouraging signs, not red flags.
“We were very honest with ourselves,” Sendek said. “The biggest problem for our team when we don’t play well is rebounding. The last two games in particular we’ve really been at our low point in the season in that area. That’s our Number 1 priority to get corrected.”
Alook at the two areas that need improvement: