Shades Of January Emerge In Devils Win

January 17 seems like an eternity ago.

On an otherwise unremarkable Saturday afternoon, the day before the Valley was whipped into a frenzy over the Arizona Cardinals advancing to Super Bowl XLIII, the Arizona State Sun Devils did the unthinkable.

At Pauley Pavilion, a place where ASU hadn’t won in nearly a decade, the Sun Devils found themselves down 54-43 with 8:12 left.

A furious rally and remarkable defensive performance followed and Arizona State pulled off an unthinkable 61-58 comeback overtime win over the mighty Bruins.

Last night, despite missing the two guys that paced the UCLA comeback, the fighting spirit of a Herb Sendek team once again emerged. Consider last night’s 52-49 win over TCU a miniature version of what happened on that January afternoon in Westwood.

The situations are remarkably similar. The two teams traded body blows through the first half and first 10 minutes of the 2nd half.

Then, the Horned Frogs went on a run that was capped off by a Ronnie Moss three-pointer with 3:54 left. It put Jim Christian’s squad up eight and Herb Sendek’s bunch into a deep, deep hole.

Luckily, much like what happened 10 months before to the day, these Devils still had some fight left in them.

The 3-2 zone locked down on a TCU bunch that was beyond three-point happy and forced them into nasty turnovers. Rihards Kuksiks started the rally with a trey of his own. Trent Lockett and, remarkably, Eric Boateng sank key free throws.

And when the ball ended up in the hands of Ty Abbott with just over 20 seconds left down 49-48, when he wasn’t even the first option on the play, it didn’t matter. That ball was going in.

In 3 minutes and 54 seconds, this year’s Sun Devil squad passed their first test of will, character and spunk with flying colors. It was a 12-1 run that vaulted the Devils from being bounced from the Preseason NIT on their home floor into a high profile match-up with the vaunted Duke Blue Devils at Madison Square Garden.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

This is the kind of victory that can define a season and serves as a big-time “growing up” moment for everyone on this team regardless of age.

If you want to go down the experience route, though, it was Lockett and Boateng who emerged as this team’s immediate and, in Eric’s case, totally unexpected major contributors.

There’s no getting around the fact that Boateng struggled to find his game and maturity over his first few years in Tempe. On most occasions, he looked downright lost on the floor.

There are only two explanations for the radical shift in Boateng’s confidence and ability between the end of 2008-09 and the start of 2009-10: he’s either been working in the gym and on film every day since the season-ending loss to Syracuse last year or someone has kidnapped the real Eric and replaced him with a new model.

If it’s the latter, my message to the kidnapper is to keep the old Eric.

There’s a newfound swagger to Boateng’s game; one that’s full of strong paint movement, better court vision and a better knack for finding the hole. Over the first two games, Eric edged closer and closer to his first double-double. Last night, he nearly had 10 boards by halftime.

Eric’s emergence as a legitimate big man has been the most pleasant and welcomed surprise in this season’s first three games. It’s safe to say that none of us expected him to come anywhere close to filling in for the giant shoes of Jeff Pendergraph. He hasn’t quite reached that level yet, and he’ll never make us forget about JP, but you can’t deny that he’s been dang good this year so far.

Then there’s that Lockett fellow. In just three games, and as much as I like Jerren Shipp, the Minnesota freshman may have rendered Jerren’s place in the rotation moot.

It’s energy-abound when Lockett is on his game so far. He earned his first career start last night after just two games and, despite shooting a woeful 1-8 from the field, his 11 rebounds and general hustle more than made up for it in a low scoring defensive battle.

Meanwhile, Lockett and Boateng combined to make up the frontcourt of what clearly is going to develop into a dynamite defensive unit which includes Abbott, Demetrius Walker and Jamelle McMillan in the guard slots.

On that note, Herb Sendek must have read the riot act to his team about winning the board battle, because a night after getting outrebounded in a win over Texas State, the Devils had a +8 advantage on the glass, including 14 offensive rebounds.

Some issues still need to be addressed. The Sun Devils did finish up shooting a respectable 42.7% from the field, but I lost count of how many times ASU had chances to finish at the bucket and didn’t.

Regardless, it’s off to New York for the Sun Devils and a chance to see how they really stack up against the top echelon of college basketball. I’ve not-so-secretly yearned for a game like this for years.

It has arrived.

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