Arizona State men’s basketball bought coach Bobby Hurley some time with an 83-79 win over Baylor in the Big 12 Tournament on Tuesday.
It has long been believed the head coach’s 11th season at ASU — his final year under contract — would not be rewarded with an extension, and reports on Monday reflected that expectation.
But the Sun Devils on Tuesday led for all but the first 2:22 of the contest and held the line as they watched a 15-point second-half lead shrink to three with 5:47 remaining. The win also guarantees a finish above .500 now at 17-15 (8-11 Big 12).
The 12th seed in the conference tournament, ASU moves on to face fifth-seed Iowa State at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday. The Sun Devils fell by 21 points to the Cyclones in the regular-season finale after leading by four at the half.
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ASU led by 11 with 9:33 remaining when Baylor had its best run at a lead behind a 10-2 run. The Bears got some help from Sun Devils center Massamba Diop when it appeared he mistakenly tipped in a Baylor miss at the rim for the final points of that run.
A seven-point response that included a Noah Meeusen 3 for the Sun Devils’ first hit from deep in over seven minutes followed to get the lead back out to double-digits.
After it was a three-point game, ASU outscored Baylor 15-7 over the following 5:11. Five Sun Devils finished with double-digit points, led by Pig Johnson’s 19 off the bench.
Bears point guard Isaac Williams led much of the comeback effort with nine of his 15 points coming in the second half, but he fouled out with 4:46 left.
ASU was 4-of-5 from 3 by the time Baylor made its second 3 of the game, as the Sun Devils built a first-half lead as high as 13 points with eight minutes left. Baylor responded with a 14-6 run to whittle the difference down to five before ASU made four of its last five shots to take a 44-35 halftime lead.
Andrija Grbovic, who made his first four shot attempts, and Pig Johnson kept the offense churning in the first half with 12 and 10 points, respectively, as season leading-scorer Moe Odum was held without a shot attempt with one assist (two turnovers and two fouls) in the opening half.
Baylor wing Cameron Carr, ESPN’s No. 23 NBA Draft prospect, had 15 points on 4-for-8 shooting in the first half, while the rest of the Bears were a combined 9 of 22 with 20 points. Carr scored eight of his 10 second-half points in the final 33 seconds.
Odum enters the second-round matchup tied with Mike Redhair (1989-90) for fourth on the all-time program list for most assists in a single season. His 185 assists are the most since Ahlon Lewis’ program-record 294 set in 1997-98.
Diop will enter with 67 blocks, the most in a season by a Sun Devil since Jordan Bachynski’s program-record 133 blocks in 2013-14 and four more than Jayden Quaintance’s 63 for the most by a freshman set last season. Diop ranks seventh among all Sun Devils for a single season and is two blocks away from tying sixth-place Tommy Smith (2002-03).
from Arizona Sports https://ift.tt/xyfgnGz
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