ASU Basketball: How this week’s turnaround revived Pac-12 title hopes

In its first Pac-12 sweep of the season, ASU basketball found a rhythm that gave new life to its goal of winning a conference championship.

Thirteen points deep into a 19-0 second half run, Arizona State and its 12,751 supporters at Wells Fargo Arena became one.

Fresh off a miss from Oregon’s Louis King, Remy Martin advanced to the frontcourt, taking a second to relish in a goosebump moment. As he dribbled the ball, a reverberating ‘ASU’ chant echoed from the hardwood to the rafters, by far the loudest the building had been since the Sun Devils’ upset of No. 1 Kansas on Dec. 22.

After dedicating the moment of clamor, Martin went to work. He took three dribbles left, beat Will Richardson to the baseline, jumped and found a cutting Zylan Cheatham for an and-one slam to elevate the commotion further.

It certainly wasn’t the senior’s best throwdown of the night (just ask Kenny Wooten), but he still enjoyed it, shimmying his shoulders while ASU continued to pull away.

And just like that, the Sun Devils rolled back in the conversation for a Pac-12 regular season title.

Last night’s 78-64 victory over Oregon impressed for several reasons. Not only did the Sun Devils move within a game-and-a-half of the conference standings, they stuck with the success built in recent outings.

From the tip, ASU executed with rhythm. Rob Edwards buried a 3-pointer in the game’s first possession, the first of 12 points in the first 4:18. Taeshon Cherry played the role of zone-buster upon entrance, hitting three of his five 3-pointers in the first half to boost the Sun Devils’ ball movement and inside-out approach.

By half’s end, ASU scored 39 points on 56 percent shooting, its most in the opening frame since the Colorado win (44). While a buzzer beater from Payton Pritchard tied the game, coach Bobby Hurley told Pac-12 Networks he liked where his team was at.

And sure enough, he was right.

ASU’s large run was only a portion of its second half dominance. The Devils held the Ducks to 9-of-35 shooting (26 percent), including 5-of-19 (26.3 percent) from 3-point range. Each possession became fast-paced, as the Ducks couldn’t penetrate the perimeter for a majority of the shot clock.

On offense, ASU turned mistakes into achievement. Out-running Oregon’s full-court press and half-court zone, the Sun Devils assisted nine of their 11 second half field goals and 17-of-25 overall. During the game-clinching run, the Ducks were forced to switch back to man defense, something ASU has rarely forced in the past two seasons.

Now winners of four of five, the Sun Devils have found a rhythm. Their 4-2 conference record is its best start in Hurley’s tenure, and they only trail Arizona (5-1) and Washington (5-0) in the standings.

Those schools will come to Tempe in two of the next three weeks. And for the first time in 2019, the Sun Devils may have the tools to compete.

The recent stretch has done its part in curing a previous weakness – an inconsistent identity. Once one of the nation’s most imposing teams, the Sun Devils have re-secured the notion, posting a margin of +4.2 while holding opponents to 39 percent from the field in their last five.

Once out-of-sync, the offense has returned as a byproduct of physical play. ASU assisted nearly 60 percent of its field goals in the stretch, improving its shooting percentage to 48 percent in comparison to 39 from its opponents.

Now, this doesn’t mean that he Sun Devils are back. Last year’s only sweep – USC and UCLA on Feb. 8 and 10 – was met with six losses in seven games. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi currently has the Sun Devils as one of the ‘First Four Out’ in his latest NCAA Tournament projection.

This stretch does show, however, that the Sun Devils are in position to compete again. And considering where things were two weeks ago, that’s all the team could ask for.