TEMPE – Arizona gave up better than 50 percent shooting to its opponents for the eighth time in 22 games at ASU on Thursday, and that wasn’t the only reason Sean Miller said the Wildcats didn’t play tough.
It was also the fact that they let the Sun Devils collect 10 of their 24 missed shots, an offensive rebounding percentage of 41.7 percent, which is better than any team in the country has averaged over the entire season.
UA collected 16 offensive rebounds of its own, for an also-impressive 40-percent offensive rebounding rate, but Miller was concerned about the defensive end.
“I don’t think we played tough,” he said. “I thought ASU was the tougher, more emotionally energized team. And that’s really as much as anything what happened and their individual ability to drive it and post it and get those key second shots. I can go all the way back to the Alabama game on the read where they got five of their last six defensive or offensive rebounds.”
Arizona did melt down on the glass at Alabama, when the Crimson Tide scored six second-chance points in the final 5:13 to help win 76-73.
On Thursday, ASU helped itself to three offensive rebounds in the first 2:05 of the game, scoring four points off them, and had one second-chance bucket in overtime when Zylan Cheatham put back Remy Martin’s miss just 16 seconds into the period.
“It’s tough when you can’t get a defensive rebound,” Miller said. “It’s tough when you struggle to keep those guys in front of the dribble and I thought to their credit they made some tough shots.
“That one deep 3 that Remy Martin made in front of his bench was a tough shot, but it wasn’t challenged. It wasn’t challenged. If a guy shoots a fadeaway at 40 feet, you gotta jump and try to block the shot. He shoots a fadeaway at four feet, you gotta jump and challenge the shot. You can’t pick and choose when you decide who plays defense and our defense in the second half was bad and Arizona State deserves a lot of credit for making them bad."
ESPN reported during Thursday’s telecast that sophomore guard Brandon Williams is dealing with “significant pain and swelling” in his right knee, though Miller said he was unsure of how serious the injury is nor whether it was related to the congenital knee issue that kept Williams out for nearly all of calendar 2017.
“He experienced some soreness coming out of L.A., and he hasn’t been able to do anything since we played UCLA so I really don’t have an answer for that,” Miller said when asked about the severity of it.
Miller said Chase Jeter was at about “40 to 50 percent” on Thursday though ESPN said Jeter told them he was at about 80 percent. UA did not select Jeter for postgame interviews.
Ryan Luther was 6 of 10 overall and hit 5 of 8 3-pointers while also collecting nine rebounds but Miller spoke of shortcomings in his effort.
“He did a good job on offense,” Miller said. “He obviously really struggled on defense and rebounding. I don’t know if his offense equaled his defensive lapses and his own inability to do what he’s supposed to do on defense.”
Bobby Hurley tried to motivate the Sun Devils by running baseline-to-baseline sprints for every point in the victory margins UA has had over ASU during his tenure.
Our coverage and PDFs of the box score and UA stats are attached.
