ASU Comes Up Short Against 13-2 Cal

by mlev811 on Jan 4, 2009 8:11 PM MST

The Devils couldn't weather the storm against the Cal Bears' on Sunday night, falling short in an 81-71 loss. ASU showed little offensive spark outside of James Harden. Harden had 26 points, Kuksiks and Pendergraph had 16, and the rest of the Devils combined for just 13 points. Cal's Jerome Randle shot lights out from behind the arc while leading the Bears with 26 points.

The Devils need someone to step up as a consistent contributor on offense. James Harden can not carry this team night in and night out. Ty Abbott played a miserable game with no productivity and a few mental mistakes. Glasser struggled to gain control of the offense and Pendergraph missed a few key layups which would have helped slow the Bears 2nd half run. One bright spot for the 2nd consecutive game was Eric Boateng, who came in off the bench and had 3 offensive rebounds and scored 6 points.

ASU faces an Oregon State team coming off of a big win over USC. The game will be played Thursday @ 8:30 at Wells Fargo Arena.

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Defense was pretty bad in this game

it seemed like Cal was hitting a poorly contested 3 every time I looked up.

Oh well — disappointing, but we’re not exactly a juggernaut yet or anything.

"He will not coddle them. Nolan Ryan doesn’t coddle." - Jeff Passan

by Dirk Diggler on Jan 5, 2009 7:58 AM MST reply actions

We don't have that shut down defense

We don’t have the shut down defense that Herb’s teams had the last two years. It seems like the past few years we really shut teams down, no matter how quick they were. This year we are not quite there defensively. Hopefully we can get that suffocating D back.

by mlev811 on Jan 5, 2009 11:08 AM MST up reply actions

This was a no-brainer

You are playing the nation’s best 3-point shooting team so of course you are going to aggressively defend the three-point shot, right?

This was a no-brainer, right? And yet Cal continually took wide-open shots and made them. But what do idiot, Internet-posting fans like me know?

by sundevils on Jan 5, 2009 7:39 PM MST reply actions

Yeah

that really was frustrating. I mean, I don’t expect to go undefeated in P10 play or anything — but to not try to stop the other team’s major strength is puzzling at best.