TUCSON — Think back to the time when the ASU men's basketball team was riding a high, sitting on top of the Pac-10, and beating its archrival UA in thrilling overtime fashion.
Now fast forward just six games later. The Sun Devils had dropped five straight during that time, with their only win coming at California in double overtime on Jan. 17.
Being down 22-6 eight minutes into a game is never easy. Now factor in being on the road and inside your rival's domain without having a clue about how to match the Pac-10's third-leading scorer, UA's Jerryd Bayless.
If there was ever a time for panic to set in, it surely was at this point for the Sun Devils.
But center Jeff Pendergraph, who appears to be on top of the world after helping the Sun Devils escape Tucson with a 59-54 victory against UA Sunday afternoon.
"Jeff Pendergraph was terrific for us," ASU coach Herb Sendek said. "I thought his teammates did a really good job of executing the game plan and finding him at the right time."
Pendergraph exploded for a career-high 29 points on 12-of-16 shooting from the field to lead the Sun Devils past the Wildcats. Coupled with a game-high of eight rebounds, the junior forward seemed to play the role of superhero in ASU's valiant comeback victory.
ASU took advantage of opportunities in the post, going to Pendergraph early and often. The Sun Devil offense thrived when UA center Jordan Hill went to the bench with foul trouble early in the first half. Following Hill's exit, the Sun Devils took control, finding Pendergraph in the low block almost every time down the floor. The absence of Hill resulted in 20 first-half points for Pendergraph.
"Their whole game plan is to front the post," Pendergraph said. "We scouted that, and we took advantage of it, and got a whole bunch of dunks."
Most of those dunks came through feeds via sophomore guard Derek Glasser, who shelved off eight assists in the slow tempo game.
"He played phenomenal," Glasser said of Pendergraph. "He really kept us in the game in the first half.
"He was hitting fall away jumpers, hook shots, dunks. Anything you can name, he was hitting. That was really good for his confidence, especially going into the Stanford game against the [Lopez] twins."
For Pendergraph, nothing was more apparent than the smile on his face after the game. After being swept by the Wildcats early in his career, Pendergraph and the Sun Devils accomplished what no Sun Devil team has done since 1995 — they finished off a regular season sweep of UA.
Gone now is the utter domination of ASU by UA.
"It feels great," Pendergraph said of the sweep. "It means a lot to us ... our whole college career we've been getting swept by them. It's time that the tables started to turn a little bit."
With the win, ASU climbs to fifth place in the middle-heavy Pac-10, and now has Stanford looming Thursday night.
"Winning is cool, but it's no good if you win one and lose one," Pendergraph said. "It's gotta be consistent. The Pac-10 is the hardest [conference] to be consistent with. We want to get to the [NCAA] tournament, and we want to get all our goals that we had at the beginning of the season. We gotta play like this every day."
Reach the reporter at love.bhakta@asu.edu.
