Arizona State

Tempe, Ariz– In a game that was supposed to show their competitiveness in the deep Pac-12, Arizona State was run off the floor, falling to the Washington Huskies by a score of 76-65 in their conference opener Thursday night from Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe, Arizona.

The Sun Devils jumped out to a great start, hitting seven of their first 11 shots in the game to jump out to a 16-10 lead within the first six minutes of the game. However, from there the Huskies would explode, going on a 30-7 run to cap off the rest of the half and lead 40-23 on the break.

Following their great start, the Sun Devils shot just 2-20 from the field  getting to the line just five times for the first half, and struggled to share the ball with just three total assists in the first half. Washington took advantage on the fast break, absolutely dominating with points in the paint by getting out in transition and getting several easy layups.

After taking a 9-0 run to open the second half and cutting the lead to 44-34 behind the strong interior play of center Jordan Bachynski, Washington would come right back with back to back three pointers from C.J. Wilcox and Andrew Andrews to jolt their own 8-0 rum. Washington improved their lead to as much as 24 before Arizona State narrowed the lead in garbage time.

The Huskies were lead by the play of the Pac-12′s second-leading scorer, as C.J. Wilcox finished with 17 points on 6-13 shooting (4-10 3PT) to go with three rebounds and two assists. They were also aided by guard Nigel Williams-Goss’ impressive performance (12 points, seven rebounds), as well as the play of forward Perris Blackwell (ten points, seven rebounds).

The Huskies shot well from the opening tip, and finished the game hitting 47.5% of their shots, including 38.5% from behind the three point line. They also out-rebounded the Sun Devils 40-30, including 11 offensive rebounds. After hitting starting the game 7-11, Arizona State wound up shooting 38.2% from the field, including a paltry 1-13 from behind the arc. Outside of strong performances from Jahii Carson (15 points, four rebounds), Jordan Bachynski (14 points, five rebounds, six blocks), and Shaquielle McKissic (14 points, five rebounds), nobody on the Sun Devils scored more than four points.

After getting off to some slow starts in non-conference play, Washington had their best first half of the season with 40 points, including an astounding 26 points of their first 30 coming from inside the paint.

Washington has now beaten Arizona State eight consecutive times, and the Sun Devils remain winless (0-2) in games on ESPN networks this season.

Arizona State (11-3, 0-1 Pac-12) hosts Washington State (7-5, 0-0 Pac-12) on Sunday, January 5th, 2013 at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe, Arizona.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 2nd, 2014 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Arizona State Sun Devils. Tags for this post: Andrew Andrews, Arizona State, C.J. Wilcox, Jahii Carson, Jordan Bachynski, Nigel Williams-Goss, Perris Blackwell, Shaquielle McKissic, Washington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.