Despite missing its leading scorer and rebounder, ASU men's basketball traveled to the city of sin and defeated UNLV 66-56 in comeback fashion.
Senior forward and former Rebel Savon Goodman missed the game due to personal reasons, forcing ASU to suit up only eight scholarship players.
The game started off unconventionally, being delayed about eight minutes due to game clock and shot clock malfunctions. This comes after UNLV spent almost a month away from its home stadium.
Instead of the clock, the public address announcer spent that time announced “15”, “10”, and “5” as the shot clock time elapsed, and proceeded to count down from five to signify the expiration of the shot clock.
The second oddity of the game was the amount of fouls from UNLV. With 5:05 left in the first half, the Rebels had accumulated 11 fouls. Despite this, the Rebels ran with a 37-25 lead at the half.
It was a tale of two halves for ASU. The Sun Devils came into the second half fairing, taking chunks out of UNLV's halftime lead after switching to a zone defense.
Sophomore guard Tra Holder scored eight of ASU's first 12 points, then senior forward Willie Atwood added a pair of three-pointers to help ASU retake the lead.
UNLV's offense went into a scoring drought, scoring only six points in the final 9:48 of the game. During that span, it only made one field goal.
UNLV junior forward Ben Carter and Atwood fouled out with 3:32 remaining in the game and ASU leading by four. A minute later, sophomore guard Kodi Justice hit a pair of free throws to increase ASU's lead.
The Sun Devils dominated the offensive board, grabbing 16 rebounds on their own end. UNLV had only seven.
Holder led ASU with three. He finished the game with 19 points and 9 total rebounds.
Senior guard Gerry Blakes contributed with his physicality in the paint as well as hustle, grabbing 11 boards and racking up 11 points helping lead ASU to a 66-56 road victory.
The Sun Devils (7-3) come back to Tempe for a three-game homestead that starts on Saturday, Dec. 19 against Houston Baptist at 12:30 p.m.
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