Valley volume turns up as ASU edges GCU

Thursday, December 9

Tempe, Ariz.

7:30 p.m.

Grand Canyon

8-2,0-0WAC

Arizona State

4-6,1-1Pac-12

Grand Canyon

Arizona St.

12/9/2021 11:55:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro

Box Score Photo Gallery

Lopes defense gives chance to win; Sun Devils tie program record of 13 blocks

By: Paul Coro

TEMPE, Ariz. – With a Lope Nation fan showing that made Arizona State take a road game approach, Grand Canyon held ASU to 31.1% shooting and won the boards by five Thursday night as Lopes guard Holland Woods II hung 20 points on his former team.

"You would think we won the game by 10 or 15 points," GCU head coach Bryce Drew said of what defensive and rebounding statistics like that usually would mean for the Lopes.

Instead, ASU narrowly defeated GCU for a second consecutive year in the third-ever crosstown showdown. The Sun Devils never trailed in a 67-62 win at Desert Financial Arena, ending the Lopes' five-game winning streaking by matching an ASU record with 13 blocked shots and setting a program record for 92.9% accuracy with at least 25 free throw attempts.

Lope Nation took over several sections of the arena's north side to help jolt ASU's building with the electricity of dueling student sections. The purple presence was felt, but the Sun Devils put a lid on the boil every time GCU briefly heated up.

"We kind of treated it as an away game," ASU sophomore guard D.J. Horne said. "I feel like that helped us stay locked in the game because we knew that their fans were going to come out. We saw all the tweets and everything about them trying to come out and sell out our arena. So we tried to treat it as a road game."

The Lopes (8-2) rallied from an 11-point, first-half deficit to be within three before halftime and shook off another 11-point, second-half hole only to miss four shots and have two turnovers when it could have tied the game or taken the lead.

"At first, they punched us in the mouth," GCU sophomore guard Chance McMillian said of ASU's 16-5 lead after the first 9:05. "We had a chance to take the lead, but we couldn't capitalize.

"It was fun playing in front of that crowd. We had to capitalize and we couldn't do it."

The Lopes' defense was offset by their 31.5% shooting, which was affected early with ASU's length closing space around the rim and worsened by GCU's frigid perimeter touch. Until the Lopes ended the game with three consecutive made 3-pointers, they were 5 for 29 on 3s.

"You want your effort to put you in a position to take the lead late in the second half," Drew said. "We had those opportunities. The next step is, when you have that opportunity, you have to seize it and make the plays to get over the hump."

ASU packed the paint and used its length to protect the rim while challenging GCU to hit perimeter shots. The Lopes opened the game 2 for 16 with five of those 14 misses coming on blocked shots.

Holland Woods

Woods, who played last season for the Sun Devils after three years at Portland State, was coolly carrying GCU despite being the player who could have been the most unnerved with emotions.

When the Lopes rallied in the first half, they scored 11 points in less than two minutes with Woods getting eight of them.

"Man, he's a warrior," ASU head coach Bobby Hurley said. "He did everything he could to try to win the basketball game for his team and I'm not surprised. That kid has a lot of guts.

"He was dialed in. I know he wanted to have as good of a game as he could possibly have and I would expect nothing less of him."

GCU senior forward Taeshon Cherry also is a former ASU player whose emotions had ups (two charges taken and a first-half dunk) and lows (a technical foul following the dunk and fouling out in 19 minutes with 2-for-11 shooting).

The Lopes trailed 33-24 at halftime after eight first-half turnovers but moved the ball better in the second half, although the shots still rarely fell.

GCU junior point guard Jovan Blacksher Jr., who scored 18 points, scored seven consecutive points during a second-half rally that could have been more if a potential three-point play had not been waved off for a traveling call.

It still worked the Lopes back into the game, along with continued offensive rebounding that set up a Woods 3 for a 42-41 deficit with 9:15 to go.

In the three minutes after that, the Lopes made turnovers when trailing by one or two points and missed three potential tying shots – two 3-pointers and a post-up.

"We had a decision to make coming out of the (halftime) locker room: were we going to continue to not be as tough and not rebound like we're capable or are we going to step our intensity?" Drew said.

"We settled in. We started to move the ball a little bit better. We had a lot of really good looks. I'll take most all of those looks that we got. Just unfortunately, we just didn't make them."

ASU stretched its lead to 57-48 on a night that it made 26 of 28 free throws and held a 25-5 advantage in fastbreak points. GCU gradually worked the margin down with 11 consecutive points from junior power forward Gabe McGlothan, who played despite being ill and losing 12 pounds this week. The rally ran out of time before the Lopes could get to another potential tying possession, as the Sun Devils went 8 for 8 on free throws in the final 26 seconds.

"I thought it was a fun game to be a part of," Hurley said. "It was a lively building."

Holland Woods

ASU graduate forward Kimani Lawrence admitted that he was "jittery" early from the atmosphere that GCU fans' presence created. But he finished with a 14-point, 14-rebound game, including a clutch post-up that put the Sun Devils ahead 59-52 with 51 seconds remaining.

After ASU's 72-71 win at GCU Arena last year, a burgeoning in-city rivalry grew Thursday night with the unique atmosphere and an outpouring of local media attention. On a Thursday night, the Sun Devils drew 4,598 more fans than they did in their previous home date, a conference game.

"For them to make their own student section, that was something else," Horne said of the GCU Havocs.