Arizona State Basketball: 2019-20 keys for road matchup against Arizona
By John Vaccaro
Limit Bad Shots
Scoring is going to be difficult for the Sun Devils in this game. U of A is among the best teams in the country when it comes to defending inside the arc, allowing their opponents to convert just 40.6% of their shots. They are closer to average defending the 3, but knocking down 3s hasn’t exactly been the strongest part of ASU’s offense this season. If they’re going to avoid going on an opening Pac-12 play at 0-1 then they are going to make sure they don’t make it easy for Arizona to continue to defend at that high level.
ASU’s shot selection in their recent games has been a huge problem that repeatedly stagnated their offense. To beat Arizona, they’ll need to get inside the lane to draw the Wildcat defense in and create open looks from outside. Getting themselves better looks at the basket than they had against Saint Mary’s and Creighton will hopefully help them look more like the team that just crushed Texas Southern and get them past their in-state rival.
This starts with Remy Martin. He’s the player who has the ball in his hands more than anybody and his shot selection is definitely the worst of anybody on the team. ASU can’t afford possessions where he is the only player to touch the ball or possessions where he launches a contested 3 with 15 seconds left on the shot clock. ASU has to take advantage of every possession and get themselves the best looks at the basket possible. They won’t get a good look on every possession. Tough defenses make that impossible. They just need to make sure that they don’t take any more tough shots than are necessary.