The EA Sports All-Stars only wish they could have hit the reset button against the ASU men's basketball team Tuesday night, as the Sun Devils outplayed and outworked them, resulting in a decisive 73-58 Sun Devil victory.
After looking out of sync at times in their exhibition opener, the Sun Devils were crisp offensively and took advantage of EA Sports' sloppy play, forcing them into 21 turnovers, 11 of which were steals.
"We played pretty good defense tonight," head coach Rob Evans said. "We took them out of everything they wanted to run."
Junior forward Ike Diogu, who missed last season's match-up with EA Sports because of a hip strain, made his presence felt early in the game. Diogu scored 15 first-half points, two of which came on a thunderous put-back dunk as time expired. Diogu finished the game with a team-high 25 points and eight rebounds.
Diogu looked to be getting into regular season form, as he played all 20 minutes of the first half, finishing with 36 minutes in the game.
"I didn't expect to play as many minutes as I did," Diogu said. "But when we started to give up the lead, I knew I was going back into the game."
More importantly, the Sun Devil backcourt found the spark it was looking for in the form of sophomores Bryson Krueger and Kevin Kruger.
Bryson finished the game with seven points, while Kevin finished with nine points, hitting on 2-of-5 from behind the three-point line while coming off the bench.
"It's who finishes the game that's important," Evans said. "Kevin didn't start, but played the most minutes of anyone other than Ike."
Senior guard Steve Moore turned in another strong performance, scoring nine points on 4-of-9 shooting.
ASU was successful once again because of its ability to close out with a strong first half. The Sun Devils outscored EA Sports 28-10 over the final 12 minutes to take a 44-24 lead into the half.
ASU played strongly in the second half but started to relinquish its lead when EA Sports went into a zone defense. Evans downplayed the effectiveness of the zone defense against his team.
"We've got the best big guy in the world [Diogu], and we have guys that can shoot," Evans said. "I'm not worried at all."
Still looking for the right group of players, Evans used a barrage of Sun Devils just as he did in the team's first exhibition game against Alberta-Edmonton, with 10 players getting in the scoring column. However, Evans said after that game, he is set on an eight- to nine- man rotation for the regular season.
With the exhibition season under its belt, ASU hopes its strong play will carry over to its opener on Sunday against Jackson State at Wells Fargo Arena.
Reach the reporter at Matt.Reinick@asu.edu.
