Arizona State spent a ton of money Thursday to have Michael Buffer do his “let’s get ready to rumble!” schtick before the Sun Devils turned Wells Fargo Arena into a furnace.
Spending even a dime was unnecessary. All someone had to do was say “Go!” because the Sun Devils and their fans had been itching for a fight for decades.
Forget that Arizona broke to a 28-11 lead. That was when the Sun Devils were jabbing and feinting, dipping and weaving. By the time ASU had fully measured Arizona, the Wildcats had thrown so many good punches that most teams would’ve motioned to the referee and said “no mas, no mas.”
But there were still 25 minutes to play.
“We battled,” said Sun Devil guard Kodi Justice.
It wasn’t long before the Sun Devils led 46-39.
People are also reading…
For Arizona, it was the moment of truth unlike any before it this season.
The mood at Wells Fargo Arena was volcanic. It was as loud as any I remember in the Pac-12, going back to the days when Oregon State was No. 1 and nobody left Gill Coliseum without wondering why their heart was thumping so rapidly.
If you can hold and win a game like that, you are not just indefatigable, you are The Real Deal, in capital letters.
Arizona won 77-70 and it wasn’t until the final minute of the game that many in the crowd of 14,233 sat down for the first time.
“I feel like we emptied the tank,” said Sun Devil coach Bobby Hurley. “It was an entertaining game to watch. It was a high-level game at times. It was a fun game to be a part of.”
Indeed, if there had been a tip jar near the press table, I would’ve put in a few bucks. It was everything the UA-ASU series hasn’t been.
Arizona won because it took advantage of Deandre Ayton the way any team should take advantage of a player who comes your way every, what, 100 years?
“After competing against him twice, he may be the best big that I’ve seen in college, as a player and as a coach,” said Hurley. “In terms of his future and his upside, he’s just scratching the surface. It’s hard to imagine what he’ll be.”
The timing of Ayton’s most significant game of the season couldn’t have been better. He scored 17 of his 25 points in the second half and got everybody but Sparky the Sun Devil in foul trouble. He had 14 rebounds in the second half.
When’s the last time anyone in the Pac-12 had a double-double in the second half? Lew Alcindor in 1968?
“They had nine offensive rebounds in the second half and (Ayton) got most of them, honestly,” said Justice. “Every shot they missed he seemed to put it back in.”
Ayton’s game-saving performance was impeccable and perhaps ironic.
Earlier in the day, ESPN’s NBA draft crew published a thorough breakdown of Ayton’s past, present and future. It wasn’t always polite. It left many wondering if Ayton was any better than, say, some guy who starts at center for USC Upstate.
According to the ESPN draft analysts, Ayton entered Arizona with the following traits:
“He never boxes out.
“He doesn’t always run back on defense.
“He doesn’t always protect the rim the way you might hope.
“His body language is awful at times.
“He takes some awful shots.
“The other team scored whenever they wanted when he was under the basket.
“Not sure how good his instincts are defensively.”
Other than that, he’s Hakeem “The Dream,” right?
Hurley has seen it all in his playing days at Duke, his NBA career and now in his college coaching days. He was as impressed with Ayton’s durability as his killer numbers.
“He doesn’t get that tired either,” said Hurley. “We had him on the perimeter, running him around on ball screens. He holds his own away from the basket on defense. You can’t push him away.”
In a way, Ayton is “unreferrable,” if that’s a word.
The Pac-12 officials have had to learn on the run with Ayton, often whistling two or three undeserving fouls on him per game. He always draws a crowd and, much like Shaquille O’Neal at LSU 25 years ago, referees look at him as a bully, not someone being triple-teamed.
But on Thursday, the Pac-12 assigned Final Four officials Randy McCall and Tony Padilla to the game, and they didn’t get sucked in and call the ticky-tack stuff on Ayton.
Instead, it was ASU’s inside gang that got into heavy foul trouble, allowing Ayton 12 free throws, a statistic that turned the game.
“We were murdered at the free-throw line,” said Hurley, whose team was outscored 21-7. And that was fully unexpected; the Sun Devils entered the game ranked second in the nation in positive free-throw disparity.
“We’ve hung our hat all year on getting to the free-throw line better than our opponents,” he said. “It’s a huge, huge advantage.”
Until Thursday, Arizona was often connected to the most dreaded word in sports — underachieving.
But the way the Wildcats rallied to win in an environment that would’ve buckled lesser teams, leads you to believe that at the best possible moment there’s a better word to describe Sean Miller’s team — achievers.
Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711