Arizona State Basketball: 3 takeaways from home upset over No. 14 Oregon

The Offense has been Fixed

There was a point in January where Arizona State had lost 5 of 7 and a lot of that struggle fell on the offense. The offense just looked broken in those losses. Against Saint Mary’s, only three players scored. Against Creighton, Remy Martin and Rob Edwards struggled and the team only shot 35.4% from the field. I don’t even want to talk about what happened down in Tucson. The first time they played Oregon, only two players scored in double figures and Alonzo Verge didn’t score. Against Colorado, Remy Martin and Romello White scored 44 of the team’s 61 points and the rest of the team shot 6 for 35 from the field. Those struggles seem to have gone away.

Verge has emerged as a consistent option for this team, having scored in double figures in every game for the last month. He has also scored 15 or more in 6 of those 8 games and has topped 20 points in three of those games. White remains a steady source of points even if it’s rare for him to explode on the offensive end. Rob Edwards just dropped 24 points against one of the conference’s best defenses. The squad as a whole has even begun to score more efficiently.

Over their last three games, Arizona State is shooting 56% from 2 and 38.5% from 3. Those numbers are both massive improvements over their numbers for the season. On the year, the Sun Devils are shooting 48.8% from 2 and 32.2% from 3. I don’t believe that this is an indication that they are just having a hot shooting streak. I believe this young team is finally finding their offensive groove and their shooters are beginning to get their confidence back.

The offense that beat Oregon on Thursday night looked completely different from any version of ASU that we saw before the month of February and that really is a promising sign for this squad.