By Adam Beadle
Multimedia Staff
Senior forward Basheer Jihad, who transferred to Arizona State after averaging nearly 15 points a game at Ball State, has been instrumental to the Sun Devil’s success down the stretch in games this season for one reason: his ability to get the free throw line.
Jihad has taken and made more free-throw shots than anyone on ASU this season, and has single-handedly helped boost the Sun Devils' free-throw percentage from last year.
Recording 20 points Sunday night, seven of which were from the charity strike, Jihad combined with four other ASU players who posted double-digit point totals for ASU to help the Sun Devils pull away with their fourth win of the season, beating the sneaky St. Thomas Tommies 81-66.
Although the Sun Devils won by 15, their path to victory wasn’t as easy as the score reflects. ASU started slow, a problem Jihad contributed to ASU coming off such an emotional win against Grand Canyon and switching to an opponent that might not pose a significant threat on paper.
“It is very difficult, but it’s going to happen,” Jihad said. “These games like this are going to happen. As leaders, as seniors on the team, I think we did a poor job of getting our guys ready. We didn’t come out the way we should have.”
However, the Sun Devils pulled away, largely attributed to a night of firsts from freshman forward Jayden Quaintance. The star newcomer put up his first double-double, scored his first 3-pointer of the season, and recorded a season-high 13 points.
In addition to the milestone performance for Quaintance, freshman guard Joson Sanon continued his impressive shooting from the 3-point line — converting on three of his five shots from beyond the arc in the game and finishing with 18 points.
“He looks like he’s got that look, and he’s really confident, playing the way I expect him to play, why we brought him here, and why people think he’s an NBA prospect,” head coach Bobby Hurley said. “Just his shot, how effortless it is for him to make. I liked his rebounding. He had eight defensive rebounds, which was huge for us.
“People identify him as this kind of lethal scorer, and it’s good he’s kind of branching out and doing some other things.”
The Sun Devils were not playing fine-tuned basketball to open the game. The Tommies quickly scored two 3-pointers to take an early 6-2 lead as ASU found itself scrambling for the ball.
But ASU didn’t take long to find a groove from deep. Senior guard Alston Mason and Sanon hit back-to-back threes, giving the Sun Devils an 8-6 lead. However, ASU was still careless about the ball. Senior center Shawn Phillips, who Hurley said didn’t play his best game, was called for traveling, eventually leading to the Tommies scoring a three and taking the lead.
The Sun Devils quickly gathered four turnovers less than ten minutes into the game, and St. Thomas took advantage. As the Tommies went on a 7-0 scoring run, the Sun Devils turned the ball over five times within four minutes.
Then, the roles reversed.
ASU turned up the intensity defensively and switched a full-court press, which enabled the Sun Devils to go on a 10-0 run.
“That worked out fine,” Hurley said. “We haven’t worked on that a ton, but the way they were cutting, and moving, and dragging us through possessions, it enabled us to kind of speed the game up a little bit and steal a couple of possessions.”
As the Sun Devils continued to turn up the pace of the game on both sides of the ball, ASU went to the locker room up 10 at the half on a 6-0 run that was capped off by a nice pass from senior guard Adam Miller to Quaintance, who slammed it down. The connection between the two was a point of emphasis from Hurley postgame.
“I’m happy that [Miller], in the first half, found him a couple of times,” Hurley said. “He’s gotta find a way to get him some easy baskets.”
Despite the halftime lead, Hurley also said that ASU needs to do better at the start of the game. But once again, this time at the beginning of the second half, the Sun Devils came out slow as St. Thomas went on an 8-0 run to begin the second half.
That motioned Hurley to return to what slowed the Tommies momentum earlier in the game: the full-court press. Thanks to some physical buckets by Jihad and a 3-pointer from Sanon, the Sun Devils went on a 13-3 that lasted around three and a half minutes.
From then on, it was all Sun Devils, particularly the freshmen, who started to turn on late in the game. Quaintance started to realize his size in the paint was an advantage. Sanon hit his third 3-pointer of the game with only two minutes remaining—that would essentially seal it for the Sun Devils—and freshman guard Amier Ali, fighting to the rim, got a physical and-1 bucket. The play at the end of the game from the freshmen is what Quaintance said they came to this team to do.
“This is what we all asked for,” Quaintance said. “We all came here to try and make an impact and surprise a lot of people. So, you know, I feel like everybody’s stepping into that role, getting trust with each other, just kind of build every day, work on learning how each other play, how to get each other looks, how to play off of each, and I feel like we’ve been doing a good job of that and everybody’s been buying in.”
With the win, Hurley has the same number of wins as former ASU head coach Herb Sendek did in his tenure, 159, and the chance to surpass that number as the Sun Devils host Cal Poly in Tempe on Wednesday.
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