The Jahii Carson Show was on display in Seattle Saturday, but it wasn’t enough.
The redshirt freshman point guard dropped a career-high 32 points, but the ASU men’s basketball team’s rally fell short, losing to Washington 96-92.
Down 94-89 with 19.4 seconds left, Carson drilled a deep 3-pointer to keep the Sun Devils (17-5, 6-3 Pac-12) in the game. The Huskies (13-9, 5-4 Pac-12) committed a five-second violation to give ASU hope with 13.9 seconds left. Senior center Aziz N’Diaye blocked Carson’s drive and junior guard C.J. Wilcox grabbed the rebound. He drilled both free throws with 3.2 seconds left to seal the game.
Carson scored the second-most points by a freshman in school history as his team shot 63.8 percent from the floor. Gilling scored a career-high 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Gilling stepped up in place of senior wing Carrick Felix, who was in foul trouble the entire game.
Felix sat out the last 8:47 of the first half after he picked up his third foul. He picked up his fourth with 12:52 left in the second half and missed a portion of the contest down the stretch. He finished with 10 points in 29 minutes.
The Sun Devils allowed the Huskies to shoot 52.9 percent from the floor. Most of their damage came from their frontcourt players as N’Diaye and sophomore forward Shawn Kemp Jr. dominated ASU’s big men. Kemp Jr. scored 18 points on 9-of-44 shooting and N’Diaye had 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting.
The Huskies dominated the glass mainly due to Kemp Jr. and N’Diaye. They grabbed 16 of Washington’s 33 rebounds and nearly outrebounded ASU by themselves. The Sun Devils had 17 boards and allowed the Huskies to grab 12 offensive rebounds. Junior center Jordan Bachynski had just five rebounds in the contest, Gilling had recorded two and Felix had just one.
Washington was able to put up points while Wilcox, it’s leading scorer, struggled. He went scoreless in the first half and had just 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting. He dealt with foul trouble along with senior guard Abdul Gaddy, but freshman guard Andrew Simmons had a team-high 20 points in 24 minutes off the bench. He went 7-of-12 from the floor as the Huskies had 30 points off the bench.
This game snapped a three-game winning streak for ASU and a four-game losing streak for Washington. The Sun Devils split their two-game road trip to the Northwest and will return home to face Cal and Stanford next week.
Reach the reporter at mtesfats@ASU.
