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Men’s basketball drops 9th straight Pac-10 game

The Stanford Cardinal Men's Basketball team defeat the Arizona State WIldcats by 83-75 in Stanford, California on February 5th, 2011 (Simon Warby/The Stanford Daily)
The Stanford Cardinal Men's Basketball team defeat the Arizona State WIldcats by 83-75 in Stanford, California on February 5th, 2011 (Simon Warby/The Stanford Daily)

When a team is struggling, sometimes it seems like nothing can go right. When one aspect of the game is going well, another important one fails them.

Despite playing good basketball on the offensive end of the floor yet again, the ASU men’s basketball team just couldn’t get the necessary stops to snap its long losing streak.

The streak reached seven games overall and nine in a row in the Pac-10 on Saturday, when Stanford’s normally dormant offense came alive in an 83-75 win over ASU at Maples Pavilion.

The Sun Devils’ (9-14, 1-10 Pac-10) only conference win came on New Year’s Day. The team hasn’t won a game since defeating Tulsa on Jan. 12.

By the time ASU takes the floor for its next contest, the team will have gone over a month without a win.

"I am not going to dismiss the fact that this is challenging for us, but I am not going to allow ourselves to go into the frustration dimension,” ASU coach Herb Sendek said. “We're going to continue to demand, be as positive as we can be, and we're going to keep working. It's hard to get that message across — even to myself. There's nothing easy about it."

Stanford (12-10, 5-6), who entered the match averaging 63.7 points per game, good enough to be ahead of only ASU in the Pac-10, scored its most points in the conference season to date.

The Cardinal are one of the nation’s worst 3-point shooting teams, entering with a 32.4 percent 3-point percentage. But that wasn’t apparent on Saturday.

Stanford got good looks from beyond the arc early and often. The Cardinal capitalized, hitting 10 of 18 from long distance.

Leading the barrage of triples was junior guard Jeremy Green, who was a perfect 5-for-5.

"It was good to see Jeremy stroke the ball,” Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “Jeremy shot the ball well in the last game and followed it up with another good effort.”

Equally as hurtful to the ASU cause was Stanford’s ability to get to the free-throw line. The Cardinal attempted 34 free throws, making 25.

"Free throws beat us today,” senior guard Jamelle McMillan said. “Anytime you're parading to the line to shoot 34 free throws, and you're making pretty much all of them, you have a 95 percent chance of winning.”

After a back-and-forth first half, Stanford jumped out to a 50-40 lead with 14:30 to play in the second.

ASU fought back to cut it to a four-point game on two occasions, but whenever the Sun Devils got the game close, they were unable to prevent the Cardinal from answering.

“They did a great job of adjusting in the second half, they turned up the pressure, they converted, and we didn't,” McMillan said. “They opened [the lanes for drives] by making threes. They had 10 threes in the game, had us running all over the place trying to close out. They were smart on their penetrations and they found the open guys."

McMillan led the Sun Devils with a career-high 17 points.  Sophomore guard Trent Lockett added 14 points and sophomore forward Carrick Felix chipped in 10.

Chanse Creekmur provided a spark and kept the game close for ASU. The freshman scored a career-high eight points in a season-high 22 minutes off the bench.

Creekmur’s minutes were critical because of the eventual absence of senior guard Ty Abbott, who left the game early in the second half and didn’t return due to a back injury he suffered Thursday against California.

Green paced the Cardinal with a season-high 23 points.  Junior forward Josh Owens scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds, but the X-factor might have been junior guard Jarrett Mann’s 14 points, nearly 10 points over his season average.

Reach the reporter at andrew.gruman@asu.edu


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