LOS ANGELES -- ASU’s walkthrough Friday afternoon was a challenge, as assistant coaches and managers had to stand in for suspended players Keala King, Kyle Cain and Chris Colvin while the Sun Devils prepared for UCLA.
The USC game Thursday? No big deal.
ASU put away USC 62-53 with six scholarship players and no designated point guards, although you couldn't tell by the way the Sun Devils moved the ball, created good shots and seemingly bought into the motion offense, things that had not been as evident in the first two months of the season.
“We played with a lot of energy. You could see it. You could feel it. All the guys were talking, moving, aware of what was going on,” said junior forward Carrick Felix, who had 22 points, made three 3-pointers and had four blocked shots.
“We executed what we learned in (scouting). It was one of the best games we have executed. We shared the ball. We were ready. We were focused. We were very alert. We had a nice sense of urgency.”
One of Felix’s blocked shots hit an USC cheerleader in the face, a metaphor for what some thought might happen to ASU in its first Pac-12 road game without leading scorer King (13.7 points a game) and starting power forward Cain.
Instead, with wing Trent Lockett taking over over much of the ball-handling duties, the offense purred. ASU (5-9, 1-1) shot a season-high 61.1 percent from the field and made 7 of 13 3-point attempts in its first conference road victory since beating Oregon 60-55 on Jan. 1, 2011.
Coach Herb Sendek did not want to magnify the result of one game, but he
did say, "Our team really played well together. Guys played very
unselfishly. We had good patience and discipline on offense and made
each other better with the way they moved the ball.
"Trent's leadership was tremendous."
Lockett had 19 points (7 of 9 shooting), nine rebounds and four assists. He committed seven turnovers, but ASU overcame those by limiting USC to 38 percent shooting from the field.
“Being three (players) down is tough, but we had guys step up," Felix said. "Trent and I got everybody together and said to go out with nothing to lose. He did a really, really good job. I’m proud of him. He definitely was able to get us into our offense. Max (walk-on freshman point guard Heller) stepped up, too."
“Trent did what we needed him to do: be a leader.”
ASU freshman wing Jonathan Gilling had a career-high 12 points and four assists in his first start while replacing Cain, adding two 3-pointers. ASU had been starting two bigs, but 7-foot Ruslan Pateev and 7-2 Jordan Bachynski shared the post. Bachynski had six rebounds in 17 minutes.
“We definitely were going inside-out,” said Felix, alluding to Sendek’s preferred style of getting the ball inside for either short shots or passes to open players on the perimeter. Felix got his 3s on dribble-penetration kick-outs or passes out from the post.
The knock on King, miscast at point this season, is that he has a hard time getting ASU into its offense, sometimes simply yo-yoing the dribble at the top of the key until the shot clock forces him to try to create a basket by himself. Ball movement appeared to be less of an issue Thursday.
ASU will play UCLA (8-7, 1-2) at the Honda Center to conclude the trip. The Bruins beat beat Arizona 65-58 on Thursday without 6-foot-10 center Josh Smith, who was held out after suffering a concussion in practice Wednesday. UCLA coach Ben Howland said he would re-evaluate Smith today. Bruins wing Tyler Lamb also missed time late in the Arizona game with what appeared to be a knee injury.
“UCLA is a very good team. We have to be very aware and do the same things we did” against USC, Felix said.
“I think we’re in a really good place right now.”
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