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Ricardo Wright checks in with 3:13 to go
ASU 65, SMU 51

FINAL

Arizona State: 75
SMU: 57

Up next: vs. TCU at Dickie's Arena in Fort Worth
9 PM
Saturday, Dec. 10

Getting embarrassed.

Alley oop, then a wide open 3. ASU piling it on.

75-57 bad guys

From the frying pan into the you know what—TCU up next.

Is it a pattern? We play the other team close the first half and then to start the 2nd the other team runs away with it.

Reminds me of the UCF football game except UCF was ranked at the end of the year. Promising first half. Energetic crowd that was much larger than usual.

Good crowd, good energy, good student attendance. SMU played a really good 17-18 minutes. When ASU turned up the effort, our guys just could not handle it - much like the A&M game. Two things stood out to me: Phelps wastes about 8-10 possessions with forced shots, turnovers, and over dribbling. Early in the game everyone else was playing well and playing smart. Then Phelps forces a shot, get put on the bench, forces another shot, gets put on the bench. Hopefully he will learn. Second things - Williamson just can't make shots. He takes good shots, he just does not make anything, 1-9. If he can work his way out of that it will really help SMU.

It's huge that we don't have a true PG. Phelps is being asked to play that role but doesn't have the handles. When facing pressure, instead of breaking it and forcing action to the hoop which can facilitate good rotation, ball movement and open shots, this team goes into defensive "protect the ball" mode and gets stalled in the half court. Ww can expect on ball pressure and lopsided losses all season long. Just ask Louisville what it's like to not have enough ball handlers. Poor Samuel Williamson...comes to SMU to be a part of this or could have stayed at Louisville and suffered there. He was everywhere last night and if he could only shoot...

Charleston Pony wrote:It's huge that we don't have a true PG. Phelps is being asked to play that role but doesn't have the handles. When facing pressure, instead of breaking it and forcing action to the hoop which can facilitate good rotation, ball movement and open shots, this team goes into defensive "protect the ball" mode and gets stalled in the half court. Ww can expect on ball pressure and lopsided losses all season long. Just ask Louisville what it's like to not have enough ball handlers. Poor Samuel Williamson...comes to SMU to be a part of this or could have stayed at Louisville and suffered there. He was everywhere last night and if he could only shoot...

An example of this was the last 20 seconds of the 1st half. He got the ball and very awkwardly dribbled around never looking for help and finally put up a horrible shot as time expired.

Just compare ASU's spacing and ball movement to ours; no contest. Easy to look back and recall the Larry Brown years and how fun those teams were to watch. Of course, LB had little Nic running the show and a more talented cast than Lanier has

There were two things that changed.

1) At the beginning of the game, ASU wasn't hitting the offensive boards. We were agressively rebounding the ball defensively, and were doing a good job attacking the space to get the long rebounds, as we forced a lot of long shots. After that one timeout, ASU started going down low, taking shorter shots, and sending someone on the backside to rebound. We are helping so much on defense that absolutely nobody is paying attention to blocking out, and it is an easy rebound and putback. Almost every time an ASU p layer would get near the paint, Odigie for example would get distracted, leave his player to help, and so the 5 was completely free to get the rebound and put it back. The defensive help and rotations need to really improve. First, only one player needs to help, often time two are. Second, when the help comes, the team needs to shift to cover the players who are being left. Under Jank, we would always help on the backside, and it left the backside corner three wide open all the time. Currently, we are guarding that back corner three instead of shifting to defend the interior to cover. Of course, the root problem is that we have to help so much, and often we actually don't need to help. As the game got away later in the second half, the perimeter switching fell apart as well. But the big issue was internal and keeping people off the offensive boards.

2) After that timeout, ASU pressed us tight man to man on the perimeter, and we couldn't do anything with it. It goes beyond the "no true point guard" issue. We just don't have players who are comfortable with driving under pressure. Phelps will do it, but nobody else really has that ability. Williamson sometimes, but it was really inconsistent. Jalen actually had a great drive at the end of the game on the baseline, which was really surprising to see. But that killed us. And then they know we can't hit anything mid-range, so you don't have to help at the free throw line. Everyone stays on their guy, Phelps drives, and then you wait until the last minute to challenge the shot. No opportunity to kick or dump off to the big guy, so you force a shot. What Nic and Kendric were great at were pulling up at the elbow and hitting that jumper. The guy chasing you from behind ends up running into you and fouling you, and you should be able to hit that shot. Phelps never takes it. Williamson does, but he does a really poor job of getting his balance back after he makes a move. So when he is at the free throw line, he will do the right thing and try to take the jumper, but he is impatient about it - you need to jump and get to the point where you are hanging and your body stabilizes before you release the shot. He shoots while he is on the way up, before his body balances.

Final note, I really feel for Jalen Smith. Last night, he was frustrated at the end, but he took it out the right way - he got in his man's face on defense, had great off ball defending, and even attempted that drive on the baseline. But the perimeter defense switching was just terrible. They started setting picks against him, and our player wouldn't switch, and left his man wide open at the top of the key every single time. Absolutely terrible communication on perimeter defense because the other players on the team just stopped fighting.

We can't hit a guarded layup. I would have all the bigs take turns shooting contested layups when fouled or not fouled until they can make 90% of them. Can't hit a floater. Again, practice, while guarded until you hit 90%. 5 foot jump shots, ditto. With no inside game, it's easy to pressure the outside because there is no consequence because our bigs can't hit shots. Any coach can gameplan us in about 30 seconds. We need to fix the inside big time.

Not going to win many games when you can't shoot 33% on your home court, especially when you get out rebounded and have more turnovers than assists (the latter of course being hurt by poor shooting).

17 points ain’t so bad. Before the year is over, a 17 point deficit will be remembered fondly and look like a razor thin margin.

Hey we won the first half!