Arizona State visiting No. 6 Gonzaga for third game of busy six-day span

Nov. 9—After putting the college basketball world on notice with a resounding 101-68 victory over eighth-ranked Baylor, Gonzaga players were rewarded with a five-day layoff — time they likely used to recover, refine their skills and review film before welcoming another Big 12 opponent to Spokane.

The past five days have looked much different — and significantly more hectic — for Arizona State leading up to Sunday’s visit to McCarthey Athletic Center (2 p.m., ESPN).

A jam-packed schedule for the Sun Devils began with Tuesday’s season opener against Idaho State. ASU squeaked out a 55-48 home win against an ISU team picked to finish eighth in the Big Sky Conference before shifting its attention to a weekend matchup against a quality opponent from the West Coast Conference.

Well, the first of two weekend matchups against quality opponents from the WCC.

The prelude to Sunday’s game in Spokane was a neutral-site matchup against Santa Clara on Friday in Las Vegas. ASU led by one possession inside the final minute, but prevailed 81-74 thanks in large part to the 30 bench points supplied by BJ Freeman and Amier Ali.

The Sun Devils stayed the night in Vegas and flew directly to Spokane on Saturday for their third game in sixth days — and easily the most difficult, by any number of metrics.

“We want to get our players accustomed for these road trips,” Hurley said at Big 12 Media Day. “We’re playing four nonconference home games in our nonconference schedule. I’m not sure any other power conference team would play that amount of home games. So we should be battle tested on neutral sites and on road games through, certainly you can look at the Duke (exhibition) this weekend, then you can move right to game No. 3 at Gonzaga.

“So we’re putting ourselves in some challenging situations against some really good teams on the road and, hopefully, that’ll pay dividends as we hit our conference schedule.”

ASU, entering its first year in the Big 12, was picked by coaches to finish 12th in the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/arizona-state-visiting-no-6-045900390.html

Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Publish date : 2024-11-10 04:59:00

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