22Jan/0910:50 AM

ASU, U of A redefine ‘ugly’ down in Tucson

By Vince Marotta

In the ugliest basketball game played since Sam Cassell and Tyrone Hill played Popeye Jones and Gheorge Muresan in a friendly two-on-two match, the 17th-ranked Arizona State Sun Devils beat their arch-rival, the Arizona Wildcats 53-47 in Tucson on Wednesday night.

How ugly was the game? Let’s just say if you woke up next to that game this morning, there’s no way you would tell your friends about it. You’d just get quietly dressed, and slip out the front door before the beast woke up. It’s a game that was so ugly, the late Dr. James Naismith spent the evening turning in his grave and muttering “Lord, what have I done?”

The two teams combined to shoot just 29% from the field (30 of 103), and a miserable 16% from three point range, although it wasn’t from a lack of trying. ASU alone filled the McKale Center air with 28 three point attempts. Ironically enough, it was two late threes from junior point guard Derek Glasser that sealed the deal for Arizona State. Glasser’s first trey cut a 4-point Wildcat lead to 1 with just over four minutes to play. Glasser’s second triple at the 1:39 mark broke a 40-40 tie and gave the Sun Devils a 3-point advantage which they would not relinquish. The Wildcats got to within 1 point when Zane Johnson hit a three-pointer with :22 left, but Herb Sendek’s team sank 10 of 12 free throw attempts in the closing minutes to put it away.

James Harden led the Sun Devils with 21 points, while Jordan Hill scored 16 points (all in the second half) and grabbed 15 rebounds to pace Arizona.

The game was also marred by a controversial call by referee Dave Libby. With only :12 left, and ASU leading by two, Hill was called on an illegal screen on ASU’s Jamelle McMillan, turning the ball back to the Devils. Replays showed the call was iffy at best, and honestly, when was the last time you saw an illegal screen called in what could have been the last possession of the game? Normally, anything short of a knife attack in a 2-point game with under :30 left won’t draw a whistle. Why now? U of A fans have a reason to complain, but the call didn’t cost them the game, their 30% shooting did.

If you’re an ASU fan, it’s hard to enjoy this win to it’s full extent, because the game was downright hard to watch. But there’s no asterisk by it…ASU has beaten the Wildcats three straight, and two in a row down in the Old Pueblo, something they haven’t done since winning four straight in Tucson from 1979 to 1983.

Let’s hope the rematch one month from today in Tempe is a little easier on the eyes than Wednesday night’s affair.