ASU senior Shaquielle McKissic goes for the basket as the Sun Devils clash with No. 6 Arizona on Feb. 7, 2015, at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. The Sun Devils beat Arizona 81-78 in the closely fought home game. (Shiva Balasubramanian/ The State Press)The ASU men's basketball team (12-11, 4-6 Pac-12) travel to Pullman to face off against Washington State on Friday.
The Cougars (10-13, 4-7 Pac-12) have struggled overall this season, but a home win over Stanford shows that they can beat just about anybody.
Washington State sophomore forward Josh Hawkinson is the Pac-12's leading rebounder this year and ASU will have to do a good job on the boards in this one.
Senior forward Shaquielle McKissic said that rebounding is always important for the Sun Devils and it is part of the recipe for going on the road to win games in college basketball.
"Every game we go into is rebound the ball," McKissic said. "We know it's tough to go and get road games, but if we want to get to where we need to be, we've got to go get those games. I'm excited about it."
Sendek said rebounding will be a key Friday, just like it was last week in the team's last game.
"We just faced an outstanding rebounding team in Arizona," Sendek said. "Washington State has some outstanding people who do that. The young man Josh Hawkinson has become a double-double machine."
ASU will go into Friday's game having played just three games in the last 15 days, which McKissic said has helped ASU get its bearings.
"It's good to rebound and be able to recuperate and have those days off," McKissic said. "We got a tough stretch ahead, three games in seven days, but we wouldn't want to be in any other position."
Sendek said the extra rest over the last couple of weeks has been good, but it does cause a quick turnaround on the other end.
"I think it's allowed us to get some additional rest, but then we go to the other extreme and we have three games in seven days, including some arduous travel," Sendek said. "It's a catch-22. You have a bye week and then you have your games pushed back to a Friday-Sunday and then the following week your game is pushed forward to a Wednesday and you're trying to travel to cities like Pullman and Seattle."
The Sun Devils have won four of their last six conference games and have seemingly found a groove that McKissic believes can carry forward through the rest of the year.
"It's really just building," McKissic said. "We still want to make the tourney, we still want to win as many games as we can and be in the best spot possible for the Pac-12 Tournament in Vegas, so I feel like everybody has calmed down, and we're really able to focus more, execute on offense and defense."
Reach the reporter at mtonis@asu.edu or on Twitter @Tonis_The_Tiger.
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