ASU First Look: Expect A Dogfight

by Nestor on Jan 30, 2008 6:08 PM PST in Basketball Comment 19 comments

Tydides is absolutely correct. Digger is a wimp! But we better not be looking ahead to the Standard Saturday night. Because if we do so we will be dealing with a back to back home loss on Friday which will take away lot of the luster off clowning Digger on Saturday.

Our Ben Ball warriors are going to be in a dog fight this Thursday against a much improved ASU Sun Devils team (14-5, 4-3) which is going to fighting and scratching to put a stop to their 3 game losing streak.

Riding the talent of sensational freshman guard James Harden (who is leading the team scoring 18.8 ppg) the Devils have been enjoying somewhat of a breakout season this year after a tough first season under Coach Herb Sendek (just like Howland's first year at UCLA) in which they finished a record of 8-22 (2-16 in the Pac-10).

However, even last year Bruins were in bruising battles against the Devils. Last year we beat them at Pauley by a score of 60-50. However, that was a tough win in which we fell behind in first half and had to come out strong in second half with a 7-0 run to take a lead since the early part of the game.

The follow up game in Tempe was another brutal one in which we had to rally from a 10 point deficit to escape with a win.

Well this year the Sun Devils look a little different. I already mentioned Harden above. Too bad Bruins got involved a little late in recruiting this local product from Southland, otherwise he'd be dazzling the crowd at Pauley (guess Howland can't win them all ).

Before losing three straight (at Stanford, v. Washington, v. Washington State) the Devils were enjoying a spectacular start to this hoops season (14-2, 4-0) which featured marquee wins over Xavier, Arizona and Oregon). Not bad for a team which finished last season with a record of 8-22.

They are coming off a tough home stand in which they battled away despite dealing with a groin injury suffered by Hardin:

Hindered by a groin injury, Harden seemed to tire in the second half of Arizona State's 72-61 loss to Washington. He had 13 points in the first 12 minutes, then only four more on 1-for-3 shooting in the second half.

"With that kind of injury," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said, "it only gets worse when you get tired."

Two days later against Washington State, Harden had the ball and a chance to win the game. He drove to the hoop and got neither the basket nor a call from officials, and WSU escaped with a 56-55 win.

"I wanted the ball," said Harden, whose 25-point effort was his 10th 20-point game of the season. "Coach drew up the play. We just didn't come up with the victory. I didn't come up with it."

Harden came up with almost everything else, adding five rebounds, four assists and three steals from his guard position.

Well you can count on those guys to be coming out scratching, fighting, and clawing on Thursday night. In his second year Coach Sendek has established the foundation of a tough program which is based on playing solid fundamental, smart basketball, and grounded on a solid defense (Sounds kind of familiar. Doesn't it?)

They are fourth in the league in scoring defense (59.7 avg/G) and third in the league field goal percentage defense (.397). [See Pac-10 stats].

They are good at disrupting the flow of opponent's offense. They lead the league in steals (averaging 7.05 steals per game). [See Pac-10 stats].

They are also pretty good in taking care of the basketball as they are second in the league in turnover margin and third in the league in assist/TO ration.

And Hardin is not the only solid player in this team. Here is their rotation:

PLAYER ROTATION
Usual Starters -- F Jeff Pendergraph, G Jerren Shipp, G Ty Abbott, G Jamelle McMillan, G James Harden. Key Subs -- G Derek Glasser; G Antwi Atuahene; G Christian Polk; C Eric Boateng.

And recent roster report:

ROSTER REPORT

-- Junior forward Jeff Pendergraph, who was leading the Pac-10 in field-goal accuracy until recently, is struggling. He totaled 15 points and 13 rebounds in two home games against the Washington schools, and has made only 9 of his 25 shots the past three games.

-- Freshman Ty Abbott bounced back from a 1-for-7 shooting performance against Washington to score 13 points in the loss to WSU.

-- Freshman James Harden has scored double-digits in 13 consecutive games, and has scored at least 16 points in 12 of those.

Pendergraph might be struggling but he is a huge key. From T.J. at Pitchfork Nation:

The key to beating the Sun Devils this year is getting Jeff Pendergraph in foul trouble. The Pac-10 has some great coaches but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the more time Boateng is in for Pendergraph, the better chance you have at beating the Devils. That being said, I do still like Boateng. Maybe I'm just a softy but I always give big men more of a chance than guards. I think most people do. It's that whole potential thing that gets people like Michael Olowokandi and Kwame Brown selected first overall in the NBA Draft. With that aside, Boateng was awful on Saturday. He's had some decent games this year and has shown some growth but yesterday was a step backwards. Right after that three second call, he was caught badly out of position on defense and Harden had to come to the rescue again and make a block from behind to keep the player from scoring. Unfortunately, they ended up scoring anyway on the inbounds play.

Aaah Boateng. Something about those transfers Duke. Kidding. Boateng has been struggling. But I am not going to dismiss any athlete who has talent when he is taking on a UCLA basketball team. Everyone will get fired up to play us (especially at Pauley). And I doubt we are going to get anything but Boateng and his team-mates' best effort this Saturday.

Love, Luc and our front court will have to keep their eyes on Pendergraph. But I am interested to see how our backcourt comes out this week. We have talked a lot about how our guards appeared step slow this past week and they were not in their usual attacking mode on defense (until late in the game). They are going to have to come out focused against a patient ASU team which as noted above can play their own brand of smart, patient and mistake free basketball. Here is what Coach Howland had to say about them:

"They're very well coached, very disciplined, the kids are playing very much together,'' UCLA coach Ben Howland said. "They run a Princeton offense, so they have a lot of little special quick hitters out of it, continuity out of it. They do a lot of things.??

So DC, RW, and JS will have to come out with a little more energy (on defense) compared to their effort in last three games.

Anyway you cut it Bruins are going to be in a dog fight against a team that is now desperate for a win after three straight losses. Our players (and our fans) will make a huge mistake if they over look this ASU team in anticipation of Saturday. I am sure Coach Howland will drill down this message in all of his players going into tomorrow night.

GO BRUINS.

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KSU beat Kansas!

by charnaw on Jan 30, 2008 7:30 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

That's why they play the game

Hope we keep our focus the next 2 games, both of which are very winnable.

by bluegold on Jan 30, 2008 7:37 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Dont you thinkt hey will drop exactly two spots

and occupy the 4 spot in the polls provided they dont lose again this week. In order for us to pass them, they (KU) needs to lose another before we do. One loss for Memphis and they could drop further, because of RPI, conference etc.. Come on Tennessee. Houston failed as expected.

by popopapa on Jan 30, 2008 8:01 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Error

Nestor, second paragraph you said "Our Ben Ball warriors are going to be in a dogfight this SATURDAY against ASU." Should be Thursday.

by BruinFanBaby on Jan 30, 2008 7:39 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Fixed

by Nestor on Jan 31, 2008 4:37 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Some early thoughts

We didn't have much of a chance to get him once Sendek brought in Scott Pera as an assistant coach. Pera was Harden's HS coach at Lakewood Artesia (home of Kapono!), as well as ASU's PG Glasser. From what I recall, Pera has been recruiting and bringing in a couple more kids from Artesia in the future as well, so Sendek has built a nice pipeline there in what used to be Bruin territory.

As far as tomorrow goes, I am very interested to see how we handle ASU's zone. The Sun Devils like to run a 3-2 zone that is very effective at slowing teams down in the halfcourt offense, and denying guard penetration to the basket. This should frustrate players like Westbrook, but even though we have struggled again against zones this year, I am optimistic we will fare much better against a 3-2 as opposed to a 2-3, thanks to Love.

While a 3-2 generally does a good job getting out to shooters quicker and collapsing on the high post, it can leave some gaps down in the low block. I've watched a couple ASU games this year, and when they have faced a legitimate low post threat, they have responded by trying to send a quick trap once the big man catches the ball, not unlike the hard trap our Warriors are so good at. That is one reason some of our games against them the last couple years have been close, because ASU didn't need to double Mata/Aboya, and could keep the typical zone busters like Roll guarded, daring UCLA to beat them with their big men. This year, they will have to double, or Love will eat them alive. And even when they do double, Love is such a good passer it should create some easy baskets and open looks for Collision, Shipp, and the rest of the bunch. This would actually be a really good game to get Dragovic minutes, and hopefully get him in a nice rhythm. On the opposite end, I would not expect to see a lot of Stanback. The Mildcats are a better matchup for him, at least offensively.

Whatever happens, it should be a good, competitive game. ASU is definitely on the rise, but we should have too much for them to handle. Should be a great day tomorrow, UCLA basketball and the return of Lost!

by BruinRod on Jan 30, 2008 7:45 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Did you send your analysis to BH?

by charnaw on Jan 30, 2008 8:10 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Artesia

Since you mentioned Artesia is the home of Kapono. I feel it must be said it is also the home of the O'Bannon brothers.

by wizardofoc on Jan 31, 2008 9:10 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Also

Also the former home of what I hope is our next HUGE recruit Reynardo Sidney.

by truebluebruin on Jan 31, 2008 10:46 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Since you mention Sidney

IIRC, Sidney transferred to Fairfax last fall, which is of course the former home of Josh Shipp and Chase Stanback.

by bruinhoo on Jan 31, 2008 10:57 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

And since you mention Sidney

Sidney Wicks went to high school somewhere in Los Angeles, not in Sidney, Australia, which to my understanding, is not the home of Curtis Rowe or Steve Patterson, but they put up some nice banners in the "Between Years."

by Fox 71 on Jan 31, 2008 3:41 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Sidney is indeed at Fairfax

They were playing at my old school a couple weeks ago, so I went down to watch Sidney and company blow us out. Unfortunately, the kid got in a fight or something that day, so he didn't play. Total waste of time on my part, but in hindsight, I guess a good thing for him growing up.

by jaffa on Feb 1, 2008 8:33 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Crucial weekend

We cannot afford to lose any more home games. Elite teams don't lose many at home, and if we truly are an elite, championship-caliber team, we should be able to handle ASU and UA at Pauley.

Let's see what we are.

by godblesstyus95 on Jan 30, 2008 8:58 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Error

In the first sentence, you wrote: "...to the Standard Saturday night." I may be missing something, but that does not seem to make sense.

by Chandler on Jan 31, 2008 2:40 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Makes sense to me

I think lot of people know exactly what I meant when I wrote "the Standard."

by Nestor on Jan 31, 2008 4:38 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

That's why I said I may be missing something!

Whew, glad I said that in my original comment. Obviously I was missing something. I know exactly what you man now, thanks to the other comments and the added link.

I had completely forgotten that comment, though I remember reading it with incredulity at the time.

by Chandler on Jan 31, 2008 8:00 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Chan, search for "The Standard"

You'll see what Nestor is talking about. I can't remember the name of the guy from Arizona who kept talking about how AZ was "the standard" even after they kept losing to us (and others.)

by Fox 71 on Jan 31, 2008 5:04 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

IIRC

it was Marcus Williams.

It was also poor Marcus that waited a whole 3 hours at the UCLA Medical Center ER for his sprained wrist, prompting 'ol Lute to denegrade the hospital in the media. Classy.

by godblesstyus95 on Jan 31, 2008 6:29 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs