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Arizona State likes to live life on the edge apparently. On Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena the Sun Devils made their fans sweat through another close game. This time it worked out for the Sun Devils.
“Just a real courageous performance by our team. Once again it shows the resiliency and desire to win. We got a lot of winners in that locker room.” Bobby Hurley said after the game.
The Sun Devils came into this weeks game with the Oregon schools with a high ranking and a bit of swag to them.
Arizona State will leave this weekend with a split with the Beavers and Ducks. Not what they wanted, but lets just say that they are lucky to have the split.
Oregon State and Arizona State came into this game with a feeling of desperation.
The Beavers lost a tough game to the Arizona Wildcats and wanted to avoid being swept. The Sun Devils dropped a game at home to unranked Oregon on Thursday night. It made the Sun Devils 1-3 in the Pac-12.
In the first half of play, the Beavers and Sun Devils exchanged the lead several times. The Sun Devils had the biggest lead of the first half at 18-13 with 10 minutes left in the first half.
Oregon State battled back to take a 34-33 lead at halftime.
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Having the lead at halftime gave the Beavers some confidence. The Beavers played Arizona tough on Thursday and now had the feeling they could finish the Sun Devils off.
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Oregon State got up by 13 with 11:32 left in the game behind some good shooting. However, there was a ton of time left. To much time as it turned out.
The Sun Devils were not hitting their shots or their free throws during this Oregon State run.
That changed.
From that point, the Sun Devils went on an 11-0 run. The lead for the Beavers was shaky at best because the poor shooting for the Sun Devils was over.
Arizona State took the lead with a layup by Remy Martin with 1:57 left in the game. The crowd went nuts and helped energize the Sun Devils the rest of the way.
When it was all said and done, the Sun Devils walked off the court with a hard fought, gritty 77-75 win.
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The Sun Devils overcame some poor shooting and poor free throw shooting to get a much needed win.
Moving forward, I think the Pac-12 is figuring out how to defend and deal with the multiple guard line up that the Sun Devils present. Now it’s up to head coach Bobby Hurley to figure out how to change his schemes up to counter act that.
It’s going to be fun to watch the chess match the rest of the season in Tempe.