ASU rides rollercoaster to OT victory over UA
Arizona State men’s basketball coach Bobby Hurley was 0-6 in three previous years in games against rival Arizona so he opted for a different motivational technique for Thursday’s shoot-around at Wells Fargo Arena.
Hurley gathered his team on the court instead of starting by watching film, which is the norm. Players were still dressed in street clothes, so they knew something was up. Hurley read off of every score from his team’s games against Arizona, then proceeded to sprint from baseline to baseline once for every point of that differential. And ASU lost by 38 points in Tucson three years ago.
“You don’t understand. I’m serious. He’s a lunatic,’” senior forward Zylan Cheatham said. “We were just cheering him on. It was hilarious. A lunatic.” Whatever works.
The Sun Devils pulled off a 95-88 overtime victory in front of euphoric crowd of 14,731, the third-largest crowd in arena history, giving Hurley his first win against the storied program from the same state.
Hurley, in his fourth year, took his spot at a table in front of the media talked for about 15 minutes about the positives and the negatives of his team’s outing. Cheatham and point guard Remy Martin entered the room with Cheatham issuing a good-natured ultimatum to his coach.
“You can get up now,” Cheatham laughed.
The coach obliged.
“You get 22 rebounds, I’ll do whatever you want,” Hurley said.
Yes, all were in a celebratory mood. And there were a lot of heroes. Cheatham’s 22 rebounds — seven in overtime— ave him 56 in the last three games. He came into the contest averaging a conference high 10.4 boards. The Phoenix native also had 11 points and three assists.
Martin continued what has been the best stretch of games in his still-young ASU career, finishing with 31 points and eight assists with one turnover — a proportion unheard of for a point guard. His heroic shots were many. He had eight points in overtime, highlighted by a 3pointer that gave the Sun Devils a 90-83 lead with 3:03 left.
ASU (15-6, 6-3) hung on from there. Asked if it was the best game of his collegiate career Martin said it was, not because of his lofty point total.
“It was because it was U of A,” said Martin, whose previous best of 24 came against UCLA a week ago. “It didn’t matter if I had two points and four assists. It was U of A and we won.”
Then there was junior guard Rob Edwards who netted a season-high 19 which included three 3-pointers and an 8-for-11 showing from the line. He added two steals.
ASU led much of the game, going into the locker room with a 36-33 lead. Arizona stayed close early in the second half and eventually took the lead thanks to its prowess from long distance. The Wildcats (14-8, 5-4) hit 14 of 28 tries from beyond the arc, many of those uncontested with the Sun Devils missing some assignments.
Ryan Luther netted 19, including a 3-pointer that gave the visitors a 64-59 lead with 7:39 left, then added another seconds later to make it 67-61. He hit 5 of 8 from long distance. Justin Coleman also had 19 with three 3-pointers as Arizona, the worst shooting team in the conference coming in, hitting for 40.3 percent (27 for 67) for the game.
Junior center Chase Jeter who missed the last two games with back spasms, came off the bench and contributed seven points and eight rebounds in 31 minutes for the Wildcats.
Arizona played without starting guard Brandon Williams (12 ppg) who was out with a sprained knee.
Freshman Taeshon Cherry (concussion) only played four minutes and did not score for ASU, which shot 55.6 (30 for 54) from the field, including a 16 for 22 (72.7 percent) in the second half.
The game was even at 83 through regulation after Coleman hit a 3-pointer with 25 seconds left.
ASU had the last shot in regulation, but Luguentz Dort hoisted up an air ball to end a frantic last possession. That wasn’t the play Hurley set up out of a time out.
“That wasn’t executed the way we drew it up,” the coach said. “That’s not the shot we wanted. We were looking for a cross screen to Zylan (Cheatham), or Rob (Edwards) coming down.”
It was the second win for the Sun Devils in overtime. The first was a 10294 double overtime win against Cal State Fullerton in the season opener.
Both teams will be off again until next week with Washington State and Washington coming to town on Thursday and Saturday respectively.