Arizona State (8-4) came up short in a 67-60 loss to Creighton (10-2) on Saturday night at Desert Financial Arena. Alonzo Verge Jr. scored his second-straight game-high points with 19 in 37 minutes.
Romello White earned his fifth double-double in six games in the first period to finish with 18 points and a game-high 12 rebounds in 37 minutes.
ROMELLO WHITE DOUBLE-DOUBLES (13)
18/12 vs. Creighton (12/21/19)
18/17 vs. Georgia (12/14/19)
14/16 vs. Prairie View A&M (12/11/19)
19/14 vs. Louisiana (12/7/19)
14/11 at San Francisco (12/3/19)
18/11 vs. Princeton (12/29/18)
19/14 vs. Texas Southern (12/1/18)
13/11 vs. California (3/1/18)
10/14 at Washington (2/1/18)
10/11 at Colorado (1/4/18)
14/11 vs. UC Irvine (11/9/17)
16/15 vs. San Diego State (11/14/17)
16/13 vs. San Francisco (2/2/17)
The Sun Devils finished the first period shooting 41 percent from the field and scored 18 points from the paint. The second half looked different as ASU shot just 29 percent (9-of-31) and finished at 23-of-65 (.354). ASU was 7-of-26 from the three-point line.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Romello White ignited Sun Devil scoring with a six-point run to give ASU a lead after opening tip. Creighton answered with a six-point scoring run that eventually knotted the score. Verge went 3-3 on field goals, including two buckets from behind the arc to send the lead back to ASU's favor. A trio of layups from White and Verge topped off with a dunk by White put ASU up 32-30 at halftime.
Feeding off the work of Verge and White in the first, Remy Martin, Jaelen House, and Taeshon Cherry started cooking in the second with an 8-0 run to take back the lead. A 7-0 run from the Bluejays forced the Sun Devils into catch-up mode with five minutes left in regulation. ASU showcased its defensive, shutting down the Bluejay offense to a three-minute scoring drought with 90 seconds remaining. It wouldn't be enough as Creighton continued to drain shots to win 67-60 over ASU.
UP NEXT: The Sun Devils enjoy a week break through the holidays before hosting Texas Southern at Desert Financial Arena on Saturday, Dec. 28 at 1p.m. MT.
QUOTING BOBBY HURLEY
OPENING STATEMENT
"We didn't play good offense again and it's been a common theme here the last couple of (games). We defended better. They got that lob play too many times in the second half, but outside of that I didn't have a lot of complaints. They're a really good shooting team and we held them under their averages from three. Did what we needed to do defensively to have a chance to win, but when you go right down the line and you just look at the numbers they're not great and that amount to 35 percent of the game. Just individual guys that didn't shoot well, especially off the perimeter collectively. Tough to overcome, but the positive on offense for us really was Mello's (Romello White) contribution and what Tae (Taeshon Cherry) was able to do at times out there."
ON THE POSSESSIONS AT THE END OF THE GAME:
"I thought we had some nice things. Late clock, Rob's (Edwards) play to get it to one was pretty good. We managed that time pretty well being down six, I think, at one point late. So, to cut it to one around a minute and change, we didn't switch properly on that ball screen and gave him too much space and he had made a couple in the game, so that wasn't great defense to get it back to four. So yeah, it was not a great way to finish it, but you got to have guys out there that make shots like that. It was a contested three and he hit it, and you got to make plays on offense to win and close out games."
ON THE OFFENSIVE STRUGGLES IN THE SECOND HALF:
"There's a lot. There were just a lot of missed shots. We weren't moving it at times. I think Elias (Valtonen) had a wide open three in the corner, and there were a lot of others that were out there for us to take advantage of that we didn't."
ON ALONZO VERGE:
"I don't think he really read what they were doing well in this game. Overall, they were really dropping off him because they knew or I'm sure they watched the film of him getting all the shots in the lane that he scored. He didn't have the confidence that he needed to pull the trigger a few times when I thought he was wide open. There was the one he missed, the pull-up that he missed late in the game, that should've been a rhythm three. That was one of the late possessions that didn't go our way. He didn't really identify that well enough and we didn't get that point across to him enough that they weren't really guarding him, they were playing the drive."
Came up short. pic.twitter.com/VdzT2mnXrL
— Sun Devil MBB (@SunDevilHoops) December 22, 2019
Romello White earned his fifth double-double in six games in the first period to finish with 18 points and a game-high 12 rebounds in 37 minutes.
ROMELLO WHITE DOUBLE-DOUBLES (13)
18/12 vs. Creighton (12/21/19)
18/17 vs. Georgia (12/14/19)
14/16 vs. Prairie View A&M (12/11/19)
19/14 vs. Louisiana (12/7/19)
14/11 at San Francisco (12/3/19)
18/11 vs. Princeton (12/29/18)
19/14 vs. Texas Southern (12/1/18)
13/11 vs. California (3/1/18)
10/14 at Washington (2/1/18)
10/11 at Colorado (1/4/18)
14/11 vs. UC Irvine (11/9/17)
16/15 vs. San Diego State (11/14/17)
16/13 vs. San Francisco (2/2/17)
Another first half double-double ??ed up for Mello.
— Sun Devil MBB (@SunDevilHoops) December 22, 2019
12 pts ? 10 reb in 17 minutes of work. pic.twitter.com/Y2BpD5Xuj6
The Sun Devils finished the first period shooting 41 percent from the field and scored 18 points from the paint. The second half looked different as ASU shot just 29 percent (9-of-31) and finished at 23-of-65 (.354). ASU was 7-of-26 from the three-point line.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Romello White ignited Sun Devil scoring with a six-point run to give ASU a lead after opening tip. Creighton answered with a six-point scoring run that eventually knotted the score. Verge went 3-3 on field goals, including two buckets from behind the arc to send the lead back to ASU's favor. A trio of layups from White and Verge topped off with a dunk by White put ASU up 32-30 at halftime.
Feeding off the work of Verge and White in the first, Remy Martin, Jaelen House, and Taeshon Cherry started cooking in the second with an 8-0 run to take back the lead. A 7-0 run from the Bluejays forced the Sun Devils into catch-up mode with five minutes left in regulation. ASU showcased its defensive, shutting down the Bluejay offense to a three-minute scoring drought with 90 seconds remaining. It wouldn't be enough as Creighton continued to drain shots to win 67-60 over ASU.
UP NEXT: The Sun Devils enjoy a week break through the holidays before hosting Texas Southern at Desert Financial Arena on Saturday, Dec. 28 at 1p.m. MT.
QUOTING BOBBY HURLEY
OPENING STATEMENT
"We didn't play good offense again and it's been a common theme here the last couple of (games). We defended better. They got that lob play too many times in the second half, but outside of that I didn't have a lot of complaints. They're a really good shooting team and we held them under their averages from three. Did what we needed to do defensively to have a chance to win, but when you go right down the line and you just look at the numbers they're not great and that amount to 35 percent of the game. Just individual guys that didn't shoot well, especially off the perimeter collectively. Tough to overcome, but the positive on offense for us really was Mello's (Romello White) contribution and what Tae (Taeshon Cherry) was able to do at times out there."
ON THE POSSESSIONS AT THE END OF THE GAME:
"I thought we had some nice things. Late clock, Rob's (Edwards) play to get it to one was pretty good. We managed that time pretty well being down six, I think, at one point late. So, to cut it to one around a minute and change, we didn't switch properly on that ball screen and gave him too much space and he had made a couple in the game, so that wasn't great defense to get it back to four. So yeah, it was not a great way to finish it, but you got to have guys out there that make shots like that. It was a contested three and he hit it, and you got to make plays on offense to win and close out games."
ON THE OFFENSIVE STRUGGLES IN THE SECOND HALF:
"There's a lot. There were just a lot of missed shots. We weren't moving it at times. I think Elias (Valtonen) had a wide open three in the corner, and there were a lot of others that were out there for us to take advantage of that we didn't."
ON ALONZO VERGE:
"I don't think he really read what they were doing well in this game. Overall, they were really dropping off him because they knew or I'm sure they watched the film of him getting all the shots in the lane that he scored. He didn't have the confidence that he needed to pull the trigger a few times when I thought he was wide open. There was the one he missed, the pull-up that he missed late in the game, that should've been a rhythm three. That was one of the late possessions that didn't go our way. He didn't really identify that well enough and we didn't get that point across to him enough that they weren't really guarding him, they were playing the drive."