Coming off a second-place finish in The Maui Invitational, the Sun Devils looked to get back into their late November, early December form, where they went 9-2 before back-to-back losses to UCLA and Oregon State.
After getting off to an impressive 9-1 start, the Colorado Buffaloes had fallen into a similar funk as Arizona State. Coming off consecutive losses to Stanford and Northern Colorado.
Short-handed with only nine players available, Colorado started the game with an intense half court press forcing the Sun Devils into rushed shots and turnovers, enforcing Arizona State with a team total of six turnovers in the first half.
Although neither team was good offensively in the first five minutes, Colorado’s Barrington Hargress started the game shooting 4/4 including one three-point field goal. Hargress’s success would continue, ending the half 17 points on 8-9 shooting.
Arizona State was led by freshman Massamba Diop with 11 points and four blocked shots. ASU’s leading scorer Moe Odum struggled to find his rhythm shooting 1-6 in the half. Despite Odum’s shooting struggles, he provided ASU with nine assists.
Missing their leading rebounder Santiago Trouet, proved to be a huge hurdle getting out rebounded by Colorado 25-12 in the first half.
“They also got eight of those sixteen misses that they had an offensive rebound,” said Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley when asked about the rebounding struggles in the first half.
The bright spot of the first half for the Sun Devil’s Anthony “Pig” Johnson who provided nine points off the bench, giving a much-needed scorer boost for the Sun Devils offense. Fighting through all the adversity, Arizona State escaped the half down 10, 48-38.
Starting the second half, the Sun Devils would go down 11 before surging on a 10-2 run to cut the lead to three at 57-54. With the momentum shifting in favor of Arizona State, Colorado responded with a 9-2 run of their own.
Arizona State’s Moe Odum began to find his rhythm in the second half 5-7 including two made three-point shots—adding a scoring streak of nine straight Sun Devil points.
As the game looked to be fading away from Arizona State, Allen Mukeba took over the game starting with a ferocious and-one dunk over Colorado’s Sebastian Rancik. The next possession, Mukeba grabbed his own miss off a shot then proceeded to put it back in to cut the lead to four. Mukeba then proceeded to save a layup with a block on the defensive end.
The Sun Devils would take the lead on a 15-4 run fueled by Mukeba, Odom and finished off with a Massamba Diop and-one slam to put ASU up by one with four minutes remaining.
But Colorado would not surrender—in the final four minutes, they would go onto shoot 16 free throws, making 15 of them.
“It’s 31 points at the free throw line, come on, I mean that’s a lot of points to give up there,” Hurley said.
Despite the rough first half, Odum led in scoring for the Sun Devils with 21 points, followed by 20 from both Diop and Johnson. Although containing Hargress to zero second half points, Colorado’s Isaiah Johnson’s 19 points was enough to get pass the Sun Devils, 95-89.
Arizona State looks to end this three-game skid and avoid an 0-2 conference start as they travel to the No.10 ranked team in the nation BYU Cougars on Wednesday.
