Jan 23, 2004
By Brian Gomez, TheSunDevils.com
What started as a one-sided affair Thursday turned into a heavyweight fight, but the Arizona State men's basketball team couldn't land the last punch.
Despite overcoming a 13-point, first-half deficit, ASU wasn't able to put the pieces together down the stretch against Oregon, and dropped an 83-76 decision before 9,701 at Wells Fargo Arena.
Winless in his previous three trips to Tempe, Oregon senior guard Luke Jackson scorched the Sun Devils for 21 points and a career-high 12 assists on 8-of-13 shooting from the field, and four of his teammates also scored in double figures.
Sophomore sensation Ike Diogu paced ASU with a game-high 24 points, and junior guards Stevie Moore and Jason Braxton combined for 30 points, but the Sun Devils couldn't generate defensive stops when they needed them most.
Braxton had 13 points and reached double digits in scoring in his third straight game, a first in his career. He is averaging 12.7 points and is shooting 15-of-26 (.577) from the field in that time.
"We didn't get any stops, and you've got to get stops when you're in a situation like that," said ASU head coach Rob Evans, whose team shot 58.1 percent from the field in the second half after committing eight turnovers and shooting 36.4 percent before the break.
For Oregon, sophomore forward Ian Crosswhite was the difference between a win and a loss. Crosswhite scored nine of his 15 points in the closing five minutes, including a three-point play that gave the Ducks (9-4, 4-2 Pac-10) a 72-68 lead with 4:25 remaining.
"He's a big guy, and outside of Ike, our(post) guys are freshmen," Evans said. "They're not physically big enough yet, so they have to use their quickness, and they weren't using their quickness."
Oregon senior guard Andre Joseph nailed a three-pointer with 3:15 left to extend his team's cushion to five points, before Crosswhite made his presence felt again by laying in a bucket and hitting back-to-back free throws. As a team, Oregon was 6-for-6 from the charity stripe in the closing 26 seconds.
The Sun Devils (7-8, 1-5) had their chances, but Moore and Diogu both missed three-pointers in the final three minutes that could have sliced into the deficit. Diogu also misfired on a short attempt in the post after Crosswhite's two free throws.
"We've got to put two halves together," said Moore, who had 14 of his 17 points after ASU trailed 34-28 at intermission. "They just slowed the game down, and they kept hitting big shots. Every time we had a run, they stopped our run."
Oregon shot a season-high 58.5 percent from the field and 35 percent from three-point range. Senior guard James Davis scored 15 points, while Joseph added 14 and freshman forward Mitch Platt had 13.
"This has been a tough place for us to play because Rob does such an outstanding job," said Oregon head coach Ernie Kent, whose team snapped a three-game losing streak at Wells Fargo Arena. "With a win like this, we can look back at the last two weeks and understand that all that hard work and accountability that we have put in place...it pays offf with us coming down here and getting our first victory here in a while."
Reach the reporter at brian.gomez@asu.edu.
By MEL REISNER
AP Sports Writer
TEMPE, Ariz. - Luke Jackson had 21 points and a career-high 12 assists, leading Oregon to an 83-76 win over Arizona State on Thursday night.
Jackson, James Davis and Andre Joseph, the Ducks' seniors, had never won in Tempe, where Oregon's last previous victory was on Feb. 5, 2000. All played a big role in this one.
Davis scored 15 points and Joseph had all 14 of his in the second half, when no more than eight points separated the teams.
Ian Crosswhite scored 15 points and freshman Mitch Platt a season-high 13 for Oregon (9-4, 4-2 Pac-10).
Arizona State's Ike Diogu, scoreless for more than 13 minutes at the start, finished with 24 points to extend his national-best double-figure scoring streak to 47 games. He had nine rebounds.
Stevie Moore scored 17 points and Jason Braxton had 13 and tied his career high with eight rebounds. But the Sun Devils (7-8, 1-5) couldn't profit from a 15-point win at Southern California on Saturday that snapped their five-game losing streak.
Arizona State had a 20-8 run in only 4:05 of the second half to take a 60-56 lead on Moore's four-point play with 10:24 to go.
But Jackson made a 3-pointer and, after a dunk by Braxton, Joseph made two free throws. The Ducks regained the lead, 63-62, on Crosswhite's tip-in with 6:45 to play.
Joseph had two 3-pointers and Crosswhite scored five points in an 8-4 surge that left the Ducks ahead 75-70 with 3:11 remaining, and the Ducks won with accurate free-throw shooting.
Jackson failed to score in the first six minutes, but banked in a jumper and made a 3-pointer 45 seconds apart during a 13-2 run that earned the Ducks a 15-7 lead with 12:23 left in the first half.
Oregon's lead reached 25-12 on Jackson's three-point play off a putback with 7:50 to go.
Diogu broke his scoring drought with a putback with 6:32 left and had 10 points by halftime, cutting the Sun Devils' deficit to 32-28 with 42 seconds remaining.