Dawgs Destroyed in the Desert 97-64

With Arizona State missing 3 starters and down to just one player taller than 6’8 it looked like the Huskies might have a golden opportunity to win a game that was originally slated to be in Seattle. Instead the Dawgs completely rolled over and showed their bellies as they were walloped by a score of 97-64 in the first of back-to-back games at Tempe this week. The loss drops Washington to 5-18 (4-14) on the season.

Despite the final result the Huskies got off to a good start. Washington’s offense looked like it was clicking as Jamal Bey drained a wing 3 and Nate Roberts cut for a transition layup to give the Dawgs a 7-2 lead. If you would only like to stick around for the good part of the recap then you’re free to step out now.

Arizona State’s offense got jump started by sloppy Husky ball handling. The Sun Devils put on a full court press and got a turnover which resulted in a pair of free throws. Then Quade Green threw it to a covered Erik Stevenson and ASU easily intercepted for a layup at the other end. That led to a 10-0 Sun Devil run which put them up on top 12-7 with 15:16 remaining.

Washington showed a little bit of fight as Tsohonis got a layup after UW successfully beat the press then Jamal Bey hit another 3 from the same spot to quickly tie the game at 12. After several missed 3’s by Hameir Wright he got a pretty feed from Quade Green on the pick and roll and slammed it home to keep it a 1-possession game. That would be the last time the Huskies were in striking distance.

ASU star Remy Martin finally got some of his ambitious jumpers to fall and the Sun Devils pushed the pace on every UW miss to get easy transition baskets. Wright got a putback and then made 1 of 2 free throws on the next trip to get the Huskies back within 5 at 30-25 with 6:10 remaining in the half but then ASU put on the afterburners.

They finished the half on a 19-4 run as the Husky’s reliance on jump shots completely failed them while the Sun Devils seemingly hit everything. They scored on 9 of their last 12 possessions to open up the 20 point lead at the half and leave no doubt. Jamal Bey was the only Husky doing much on the offensive end with 12 points on 3/3 shooting from deep while the rest of the team was a combined 1/14 on 3-pointers.

Coming out of halftime Quade Green hit his first basket of the game on a baseline jumper to get the Huskies over the 30 point marker. From there it would take nearly 6 minutes for Washington to score again as they missed jumper after jumper and layup after layup. J’Raan Brooks finally got to the free throw line at one point but ended up missing both. The scoring drought resulted in a 17-0 ASU run to bring the Sun Devil lead at its peak (at that point) to 68-31.

RaeQuan Battle finally got Washington on the board with an and-1 layup that realistically could’ve been called a charge against them. A really nice outlet pass from J’Raan Brooks to Battle got him a transition dunk and unfortunately Nate Pryor’s alley-oop attempt to Battle hit the backboard and never gave him a chance. That 7-0 run by the Huskies cut the lead back to...30.

Quade Green managed a few drives to the basket and on one where he was knocked to the ground got up and clearly yelled to the ref that he was fouled. That got him T’ed up and resulted in Quade fouling out with 9 points and 3 turnovers after not getting the start for undisclosed reasons.

Things ultimately got worse for the Huskies as Arizona State made back-to-back corner 3’s from the exact same spot which pushed the Sun Devil lead to 39 points at 89-50 on the way to the final margin.

Marcus Tsohonis ended up leading the Huskies with 16 points and 6 rebounds but it took him 16 shots to get there. Jamal Bey was the only other Dawg in double figures with 12 as he sat almost all of the second half. The non-Jamal Bey Huskies finished 4/26 from 3-pt range and 2 of those makes were in the last few minutes. The shooting wasn’t much better from anywhere else. Washington finished an abominable 9 of 20 from the free throw line while losing the turnover battle 16 to 8.

Arizona State was led by 26 points from their star Remy Martin and things could’ve been worse had he been better than 7/13 from the free throw line. Kimani Lawrence also had 22 as some of 6 different Sun Devils to score at least 6 points.

We get to do this all again on Thursday night at 4pm PT as these two teams square off once again in Tempe. Then Washington’s regular season finale will be at Arizona on Saturday morning.