Sun Devils rally with 20–1 surge to top Georgia State

It took one play for the mood inside Desert Financial Arena to shift. When Georgia State sophomore guard Jakai Newton sliced to the rim and finished to put the Panthers up 11 with 14:20 left, a stunned quiet rolled over the crowd. Three nights ago, ASU had just gone toe-to-toe with No. 13 Gonzaga. Now they were getting stunned by a 1-3 Georgia State team whose only win came against Division II Fort Valley State.

Fans fidgeted as three-pointer after three-pointer dropped for the Panthers. The perimeter defense cracked, the energy dipped, and the setup for the classic trap was becoming impossible to ignore. Head coach Bobby Hurley felt it immediately.

“I know coaches use the word like trap game, but this was like a perfect trap game for us,” Hurley noted. 

For nearly 25 minutes, that trap held tight. The few Panthers fans who made the journey to Tempe celebrated every make with exuberance while ASU searched for anything to steady itself. The usually fiery Hurley entered halftime calm but direct, gathering his frustrated staff and players before asking two simple questions:

“Is this who we are? Is this what we want to look like?”

ASU answered with force.

Over the final 14:20, the Sun Devils outscored Georgia State 34-10 and ripped off a 20-1 run in under six minutes. A defense that allowed nine threes early held the Panthers without a make on their last nine attempts and without a field goal for the final 6:24. ASU forced 18 turnovers, turning them into 27 points, as senior guard Moe Odum powered the comeback with a season-high 24 points, nine assists, and five steals. What began as the perfect trap ended as a 75-62 statement in resilience, as ASU (3-1) flipped the script and left Georgia State (1-4) chasing a game that had completely swung the other way.

Still, the final score hides how dire the first 25 minutes were. For most of the night, ASU looked lost, searching for answers while Georgia State played like the Big 12 contender in the building, drilling nine of its first 15 threes and crushing any ASU momentum. The Sun Devils, stuck at 2-for-14 from deep in the first half, simply could not match the barrage.

It was a tale of two halves. For a long stretch, Odum was the only Sun Devil even near double figures, trying to prop up an offense that could not keep pace with the red-hot Panthers. Deep down, though, Hurley believed defense would be the lever to flip the game.

“We had some bad, soft closeouts in the first half, and we let them get comfortable hitting threes,” Hurley explained. “The basket was like this big for a while for them because of how good we allowed them to feel at that end. They were shooting like 50% from the field and 50% from three, and we were not guarding anybody. And we lost the last four minutes 12 to two after we took a 32-27 lead. You cannot do that on your home floor.”

Even out of halftime, things were not immediately fixed. Georgia State opened the half with a 10-7 burst, and ASU seemed on the brink again. With less than 14 minutes to completely reinvent the game, the Sun Devils needed a spark.

That is when senior guard Anthony “Pig” Johnson stepped in.

Scoreless in the first half, Johnson delivered 13 points after the break, lighting the fuse ASU desperately needed. Bucket after bucket dropped as Georgia State’s offense finally cooled, and the Sun Devils fed off the crowd and stormed into their 20-1 burst. Johnson scored eight of those 20 points, punctuating the run with steals, transition dunks, and the threes ASU could not buy earlier in the night.

“I thought Pig Johnson’s energy and getting in the open court were huge,” Hurley remarked. “You could put Mossamba and Moe in their own different categories, but when I addressed the team afterward, I thought Noah and Pig specifically, just what they did in that stretch defensively, turned the game around for us. So happy for those guys, and happy we were able to escape with the win today.”

Freshman center Mossamba Diop played his own pivotal role in the comeback, pairing with Johnson to stabilize the second half. Diop scored nine of his 15 points after the break, secured an 11-rebound double-double, and added two blocks and a steal.

And through it all, Odum never stopped driving the engine. The Pepperdine transfer was ASU’s heartbeat from the opening tip, scoring 15 first-half points with four assists and three steals, and he carried that rhythm straight into the closing stretch with nine more points, five assists, and two additional steals. Whether pushing the break, finding shooters, or creating his own offense, Odum was both the stabilizer early and the catalyst late.

After a 4-for-15 outing against Gonzaga on Friday, flipping the script into a season-high performance came down to getting back to himself.

“After the Gonzaga game, I went back home and watched the film,” Odum recalled. “I just sat down, watched the film with my dad, and just felt like I was taking too many threes, too many bad shots. Forcing the game, not letting it come to me. So that was my game plan: to come out here and just let the game come to me, take what the defense gives me. Just not falling in love with the three so much, because I have other things to my game.”

It was not pretty, but ASU eventually walked off with a comfortable win on a night that looked anything but comfortable. The early nonconference slate as a whole has been uneven, with flashes of promise, moments of chaos, and plenty still to refine, but the Sun Devils have avoided disaster, handled their business, and even gone toe-to-toe with a much more talented Gonzaga team.

Now, with a road game on Thursday at Hawaii and a first-round matchup versus Texas in the Maui Invitational looming next week, ASU hits the road with new challenges and, importantly, real lessons in hand.

“We cannot underestimate anybody,” Odum warned. “We came into the game underestimating Georgia State, and we almost got our heads blown off. So we cannot underestimate them. And I hope it is a lesson for my teammates to never underestimate anybody that is not Power Five, because at the end of the day, we have all been at the mid-major level, so we should know how that feels.”