TEMPE, Ariz. – The Arizona State men’s basketball team, courtesy of a stellar defensive outing, cruised to a 86-68 victory over the Oregon State Beavers Thursday night at Wells Fargo Arena.
Holding Oregon State’s Gary Payton II, the Pac-12’s second-leading scorer, to just two points (a feat opponents have accomplished only twice over his 50-game career, the Sun Devils limited Oregon State to a dismal 19.2 percent (5-of-26) shooting in the first half and 43.1 percent (25-of-58) for the game.
“It’s a good feeling right now to see the team play that way," said head coach Bobby Hurley. "It started on defense, how we guarded them in the first half. The numbers reflected that. I thought we had great energy, getting deflections and generating stops."
QUICK NOTES...
--ASU's .593 shooting percentage (32-of-54) is its best in a Pac-12 game since Feb. 2, 2013, when it shot .638 (37-of-58) at Washington.
--ASU's 24 assists is its most in a Pac-12 game since it also had 24 vs. Oregon State on March 5, 2011.
--Tonight marked the first time an ASU opponent did not have a block this year.
--Oregon State's 17 points in the first half was the fewest by an ASU opponent since a 34-13 halftime lead at California last year (Jan. 22, 2015).
--Obi Oleka (17 points) led ASU in scoring for the third time this year. He led with 19 vs. Kennesaw State and 14 at California.
--Tra Holder matched his career high with eight assists.
--ASU placed five players in double figures for the fourth time this year, the most times it has done that since it did that four times in the 2008-09 season.
--Tonight marked only the tenth time in the past 27 years (1989-90 to present) that ASU led by 19 at the half (36-17) in a Pac-12 game.
--ASU has now won eight straight over Oregon State in Tempe and is 26-12 (.684) against them in Wells Fargo Arena.
Excelling on both ends of the court, Arizona State recorded a season-high 24 assists on 32 field goals, finishing a season-best 59.3 percent (32-54) from the field, while going 11-of-24 from beyond the arc. Arizona State's 24 assists marks it most in conference play since it recorded 24 vs. Oregon State on March 5, 2011. Tonight's shooting performance also marks the team's best in Pac-12 play since going .638 at Washington on Feb. 2, 2013.
Obinna Oleka paced Arizona State recording a game-high 17 points, while adding five boards. In total five Sun Devils, including the aforementioned Oleka, posted double-figure scoring outings.
Senior guard Gerry Blakes finished with 16 points along with five rebounds. Willie Atwood, who has now recorded 15 double-digit scoring outings on the season, added 13 points and six rebounds.
Bigs Eric Jacobsen and Savon Goodman each posted 10 points respectively. Sophomore guard Tra Holder had an all-around solid outing, closing with a game-high eight assists, while adding eight points and six boards.
Led by a game-high eight rebounds from Goodman, Bobby Hurley’s squad won the battle on the boards 39-24. The Sun Devils tallied eight offensive rebounds en route to 13 second-chance points.
Dominating from the opening tip to the final buzzer, Arizona State would kick start play on a 20-5 run. The Sun Devils would continue to expand their lead, going ahead by as much as 21, before heading into recess up 36-17.
Willie Atwood led all players in the period with 10, as the Sun Devils finished the half shooting 52.2 percent (12-23).
Although Oregon State would improve offensively down the stretch going 20-32 from the field as opposed to 5-26 in the opening half, Bobby Hurley’s squad continued were they left off early. Going 64.5 percent from the field in the period, the Sun Devils further elevated their level of play, matching Oregon State’s late offensive push. Hitting a barrage of threes over the course of the half, the Sun Devils would lead by as many as 27, 59-32, with 11:54 remaining, before closing ahead 86-68.
UP NEXT…
The Sun Devils host the #23 Oregon Ducks (Sunday, Jan. 31) at 6:30 p.m. (MT). The game is slated to be televised on ESPNU with Roxy Bernstein and Cory Williams on the call. Tim Healey and Kyle Dodd have the Sun Devil radio call on the Sun Devil Sports Radio Network (620 AM), presented by MidFirst.
ASU EIGHT-GAME WIN STREAK IN TEMPE OVER OSU
ASU 86, Oregon State 68/Jan. 28, 2016
ASU 73, Oregon State 55/Jan. 28, 2015
ASU 86, Oregon State 82 (OT)/Feb. 6, 2014
ASU 76, Oregon State 66/Jan. 14, 2012
ASU 80, Oregon State 66/Mar. 5, 2011
ASU 56, Oregon State 46/Feb. 11, 2010
ASU 69, Oregon State 38/Jan. 8, 2009
ASU 72, Oregon State 53/Jan. 5, 2008
COACH HURLEY QUOTES
ON TRA HOLDER’S DEFENSIVE SHOWING:
“I’m excited for Tra. That’s a big step for him. We’ve given Gerry Blakes a lot of tough assignments. I think that we need to focus on guarding the guy at our position and we’re going to try and do that more throughout the rest of the year. Tra was happy that he got the call on him. He said that to me after shoot around. He accepted the challenge. That’s where his focus was. He knew that he had a responsibility to guard arguably the best player in the league right now, and a veteran guy. He did a great job on him. You know, he had a lot of help. I thought our help-side defense was good at shutting down some lanes and not giving him a lot of areas to drive into. And then our ball-screen defense was also solid. I’m happy for Tra. It also freed up Gerry to not have to guard the best perimeter guy. He turns out and has a very good offensive game, so it worked out well.”
ON MATCHING HIS PLAYERS TO DEFEND THEIR OWN POSITIONS:
“I want Tra to take another step defensively and want to guard the premier guards if they’re at his position. He’s established himself with his offense as one of the better point guards and now he’s got to do it at the other end. It was nice to see him do that. At the same time, I thought, ‘Let’s take some heat off Gerry right now. Let’s allow him to play the guy at his position and then maybe he’d play a better offense.’”
ON FRONT LOADING THE INTENSITY OF PRACTICES:
“It was just a thought. When you struggle early in games, you second guess yourself. You wonder if you’re doing all the right things. Are you talking about the right things with the players? You examine your warmups. You examine your pregame speech. You examine what’s happening during the beginning stages of a game when you’re not playing as well. So we want to avoid droughts and putting ourselves in a deficit early in the game. I just thought in practice to say, ‘Hey, let’s try and play the first 20 minutes of practice at the highest level.’ I don’t know how much of an effect that would have or not have but that’s what we talked about.”
ON KEEPING THE PACE UP IN THE SECOND HALF:
“We felt like we played well enough to put ourselves in a position that, in this basketball game, our opponent shouldn’t have had a sniff at getting back into the game. When you play that well in the first half, you want to establish yourself early again in the second half. We were able to build on our lead and then force Oregon State to continue to chase us.”
ON KEEPING THE CONFIDENCE HIGH DESPITE THE TEAM’S RECORD:
“We feel and we believe that we’re a better team than our record reflects. There’s nothing to change that at this point. But these guys answered a bell. We’ve been competitive in every game we’ve played in the conference. It is demoralizing to lose close games and not be able to break through, but it’s nice to have a confidence building performance like we had tonight on offense. Hopefully that will trigger additional momentum moving forward.”
ON REBOUNDING:
“That’s probably one of the best things that Gerry does is rebound from that position. We talked about it. Those guys understood it. They saw it on the film. And they did a good job of keeping them off the board.”
ON HAVING FIVE PLAYERS IN DOUBLE FIGURES:
“I just think it’s balance. It’s shot distribution. There could be games where Tra would take 15 shots, if that’s what the defense presents. We’ve talked more about being balanced and that’s what got us the great record in non-conference with the caliber of opponents we faced. It’s something that hasn’t always been there in some of the losses. To see a lot of guys playing well and the shot distribution pretty balanced is a positive thing, and the assist total.”
ON TRA HOLDER’S DISTRIBUTION OF THE BALL:
“We watched the film. We showed Tra times that he could make the pass. I think some of that is respect too. Gary Payton II is one of the best defensive guards in the conference. I’m sure he has respect for his on-the-ball defense and he knows that he may not always be able to break his guy down and get his shot and he’s willing to find teammates.”
ON HEDGING THE BALL SCREEN:
“It’s underrated. We spent so much time talking about our defense this week and hedging ball screens the way that we need to. Hedging ball screens doesn’t show up in the stat sheets. You don’t get points for that. So it’s something that the guys don’t always value. And we need to express how important that is to our defense. They were, for the most part, good with that especially in the first half, not as much in the second half. But by then the game was already kind of decided.”
ON MICHAEL PHELPS:
“That’s the first time that I’ve seen the Curtain of Distraction this year. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see that. He made a major contribution to the game tonight. It was one of the highlights of the night for sure.”
ON MICHAEL PHELPS’ CLOTHING DURING HIS PERFORMANCE:
“It was appropriate for his past and his history. The cool part of it was how much fun he had doing it. It looked like he enjoyed it and our crowd fed off of it which was nice. We really appreciate him helping take two points off the board for us.”
OREGON STATE HEAD COACH WAYNE TINKLE QUOTES
On whether he liked his team’s shot selection tonight:
“No. I thought we were very passive. We missed some that we normally make, but give (ASU) credit. (ASU) put our guys back on their heels a bit offensively, and that in combination with not shooting it very well was tough. But more disappointing than that was our lack of focus defensively. That was not us. We didn’t defend well in the first half. And we challenged our guys to really defend in the second half, but we gave up even more points. We kept searching and trying to find a group that would battle. We found one but it was way too late.”
On the difficulty of playing from behind:
“It’s tough. Really tough, especially on the road. Give (ASU) credit again, if there was any bit of momentum (ASU) hit some tough shots that kind of broke our back. There was some fight in us but (ASU) just took it away from us, so give them credit again. I’m just disappointed that, with the momentum we got off the USC win the other day, that we came out for the first couple possessions and we just weren’t playing Beaver basketball. We weren’t getting to our spots in our zone, not guarding the ball, not hedging the on-ball (screen), not rotating on the help side, not covering the roller and unfortunately that went on for most of the game.”