Defensive domination in the front court led to interior control for ASU
Injuries have been the Achilles heel of the Sun Devils for the entire season. Before every game, the Big 12 injury report lists a minimum of five players. On Saturday afternoon, two integral figures played 48 minutes combined despite not practicing the last two days due to injury.
So it’s no surprise that early into the Big 12 season, head coach Bobby Hurley began using zone defensive schemes throughout every contest, after all, the style is good for conserving energy, rather than chasing players around in man-to-man.
“I like to play zone a little bit,” Sophomore forward Santiago Trouet laughed. “Gives me a little break on defense.”
While Trouet was able to get a breather, typically holding down the left wing behind senior guard Moe Odum, who operated above the break on that same side, Utah’s (10-19, 2-14 Big 12) discombobulated offense scored its fifth lowest tally of the season in a 73-60 victory for Arizona State (15-14, 6-10).
The Utes’ offense was very productive against man-to-man defense. In the first half, they knocked down 7-of-11 shots to start the game and jumped out to an eight-point lead. The second half was nearly identical, as they hit their first seven shots in eight minutes.
However, just as the program that resides near the Great Salt Lake saw its well run dry around the midway point of each half. Utah went on a scoring drought of eight minutes toward the end of the first half, to finish the period shooting 1-of-10 from the field.
While in the second half, despite rattling off seven consecutive field goals, an abrupt halt in the Utes’ shooting followed; they would hit just three of their subsequent 17 shots, allowing ASU to take full control.
“We had nine blocks as a team,” Hurley noted post-game. “That’s a great activity, and (Diop) had four. Massamba did a really good job at what we need him to do. Just be in that last line of defense, and (Trouet) had three, so both guys in those positions did a great job.”
How ASU executed this zone pressure was simple: after a made basket, the two guards at the top of the zone would press full court, forcing Utah to walk the ball up the floor. Once the pace was slowed down, the visitors failed to move the ball quickly on offense, which allowed rapid guards such as Odum, junior Bryce Ford, senior Anthony “Pig” Johnson, or sophomore Noah Meeusen to rotate quickly.
“It’s a great lesson in learning to do it without dribbling,” Utah head coach Alex Jensen said about what he learned against ASU’s zone. “You pass the ball, change sides of the floor.”
The scramble up top caused eight Utah turnovers, but when the Utes’ guards beat the first phase of defense, the last line featured length and physicality. Diop, Trouet, and Grad forward Allen Mukeba challenged everything at the basket.
“We’ve been preaching that all week, just effort and rotating, having our guys back, and when we’re there, you don’t have to foul,” Ford explained. “Just stay there, stay strong, and make them shoot over us.”
This tall task could only be quelled with fast ball movement, which is not a strength of this Utah team. They’re typically led by elite guard play, especially from junior Terrence Brown, who is fourth in the Big 12 in ppg, averaging 20.1 a night.
Brown is incredibly consistent offensively; he’s scored 20+ points 16 times this season, yet in two games against ASU, he’s only scored 14 total points. Brown’s two worst games of the season offensively have come against the maroon and gold, and it’s due to this treacherous zone.
“Massamba is a great shot blocker. We want to run them off the line and funnel everything to the middle and just make him shoot over the top of him,” Ford noted. “Which is very difficult, which either hit backboard or he’s blocking it. And then from there, we’re just off to the races where we’re best.”
While Brown has grueled offensively against the Sun Devils all year, shooting just 6-of-28 through two games, ASU turned stops on one end into easy baskets on the other.
It was a team-oriented attack from the Sun Devils; four players scored in double figures, including Trouet, who notched his fifth double-double of the year, scoring a dozen points while adding 10 rebounds. Four of which came on the offensive end, including during a sequence when Trouet missed his own shot twice but got it back eventually, leading to a bucket on the third time of asking.
“He made such a huge impact in this game, especially in the first four minutes of the second half,” Hurley noted on Trouet’s three offensive rebounds in two minutes to begin the second half. “When a lot of guys would put their head down if they missed the layup, he just kept going after the ball and going after the ball and going after the ball. So he personifies the type of players that I like to coach.”
Odum recognized his frontcourt teammates were in for an explosive night on both ends. After analyzing film with the coaching staff, Odum realized he’d been holding on to the ball too long during pick-and-roll actions offensively.
This prompted him to make quick reads when Utah would blitz with two defenders on the ball. This opened up the game for everyone rolling off of him, especially Dio,p who finished with 14 points.
“I got off of it a little earlier to give my teammates more room to work,” Odum explained. “I feel like I got off of it early, and I gave them the confidence to make their own plays.”
Schematically, ASU was a step ahead on the interior, and it bled from the defensive side of the court to the offensive end. From a Utes perspective, Jensen made it clear the team failed to play with cohesion,n calling the day “the most selfish game we’ve played all season.”
“I think it goes back to offense,” Jensen relayed. “The lack of passing, I think, disconnects us on defense. And then we stopped talking, and guys are upset or whatever, then we’re just like a step behind.”
Big 12 wins have been hard to come by for the Sun Devils, especially convincing wins in which they dominated proceedings on both ends. Saturday’s manatee was just the second double-digit win they’ve had in conference play.
The season sweep against Utah proved ASU is a step above some of the teams toward the bottom of the Big 12 table, and in regard to how they got over the line, spectators don’t have to look much further than a zone defense choosing havoc for the one-dimensional Utes.
“It has worked in both games versus Utah, for some reason,” Hurley said. “We’ve sprinkled it in some other games. It hasn’t always been great, but it’s a good fit for this opponent, because Brown is a nightmare to keep out of the paint, and if you just allow him to have space to work in a man defense the whole game, then all those fouls that we didn’t commit, we would have had a lot more guys potentially in foul trouble.”
