Arizona State Basketball: 2019-20 season review of the Sun Devils

The Lows

A Trouncing In Tucson

Arizona State couldn’t have started their conference schedule in a worse way. They traveled down to Tucson to take on their in-state rival, the University of Arizona, with their resume badly needing a signature win. Unfortunately, that win absolutely wasn’t coming at U of A.

The Sun Devils looked overwhelmed from the start, struggling to get anything going on the offensive end and offering little resistance on defense. The 28 point loss was a performance that had many thinking that the Sun Devils’ hopes of a 3rd consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament could be in major trouble.

Saint Mary’s Goes Off

This was not only one of the low points of the season for Arizona State, but it was also just a flat out odd game. The Sun Devils entered the game with one of the best 3 point defenses in the country, but you certainly wouldn’t have known it if this was your first exposure to the team.

Saint Mary’s absolutely caught fire right from the start of the game. At one point, Jordan Ford was outscoring the Sun Devils 22-7 by himself. The Gaels knocked down 16 of the 26 3s they attempted and shot 59.6% from the field.

Meanwhile, there was only one player on the Sun Devils who was capable of scoring the night. Alonzo Verge announced himself to the world with 43 of ASU’s 56 points Only two other players (Romello White and Taeshon Cherry) even managed to score a point in the game for the Sun Devils. As a team, they shot 35.9% from the field and 13.6% from 3.

This was one of the worst beatings I’ve ever seen a team of ASU’s caliber take and it was one fans wanted to forget as quickly as possible.

Shocker Against Washington

This one might have hit me a little bit harder than other Sun Devil fans because it was my first game at Desert Financial Arena, but I feel like the consensus was that this was a really bad loss at a really bad time. The Sun Devils had been on a roll since their tough start to conference play and absolutely should have been the superior team at home against the last-place team in the conference. Unfortunately, it just didn’t happen.

There were plenty of factors that contributed to this one. The refs were certainly not great, but the bigger issues were that Washington shot better than usual from the field and ASU’s shot selection came back to bite them.

Nahziah Carter got hot from outside, knocking down five of his eight three-point attempts. That made it a lot tougher for the Sun devils to defend the basket, which Isaiah Stewart, Jaden McDaniels, and even Carter took advantage of in the second half.

The biggest problem, though, was shot selection. We all know that Remy Martin occasionally takes some shots that would drive most coaches absolutely nuts. Usually, he hits enough of them for it to actually spark the Sun Devils. That wasn’t the case in this game as he struggled to hit anything, but continued to take the tough shots from way beyond the 3-point line, eventually leading to boos from the home crowd (it’s still absolutely ridiculous to me that a player who has been so great for the program all year would get booed for one bad game). It also wasn’t just Martin who was at fault here, though.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen somebody hit nothing but backboard shooting corner 3s as Rob Edwards did that night. His bad shots just weren’t as noticeable because he also hit some big ones for the Sun Devils. Romello White also had a tough time finishing inside and insisted on continuing to take on Isaiah Stewart.

All in all, this was a bad night for the Sun Devils to fall short of expectations.