In his first three conference road games as a collegian back home in LA, Arizona State star James Harden had lost three times to USC and UCLA by a total of 59 points. The low point came on Thursday night when Harden had his worst shooting performance as a collegian, missing all eight of his field-goal attempts in the Sun Devils’ 14-point loss to USC. With the likelihood that Harden is playing his last season in college, Saturday afternoon’s game at Pauley Pavilion represented the last chance for the sophomore to go to a Pac-10 opponent’s home gym and win in his hometown. He did not disappoint.
Harden’s 24 points and four rebounds in ASU’s 61-58, overtime win are certainly nice, but they don’t pop out at you like the consistent 25 and 15 efforts from guys like Blake Griffin and Luke Harangody. Much of the responsibility for the underwhelming nature of Harden’s statline lies with the fact that his team — and on Saturday, his opponents also — plays at such a slow pace. This is something we’ll explore in greater depth in a subsequent post, but it shouldn’t take away from the exceptional nature of Harden’s talents.
Harden occupies the greatest portion of any major-conference offense, and he uses those possessions with admirable efficiency. In a game where Ty Abbott was limited by injury and ineffectiveness and Derek Glasser and Rihards Kuksiks were off the mark on the occasions when they did shoot, Harden was the focal point of an ASU attack that was actually fairly efficient despite the low point total.
Herb Sendek’s squad scored 1.10 points per possession, thanks mostly to Harden’s ability to defy the constant traps and double-teams to get into the paint and get to the line. ASU’s primary advantage was at the charity stripe where Harden’s 7-for-9 was the exact difference in a game where the Sun Devils made 14-of-17 and the Bruins made 7-of-9 and a huge factor in a game decided in overtime.
Ben Howland charged Jrue Holiday and Josh Shipp with the task of guarding Harden most of the day, but Howland used his entire defense to try to contain Harden, who drew seven fouls in the game’s final 14 minutes to get ASU back in a game that it trailed by as much as 11 after a long Michael Roll jumper made it 54-43 with 8:15 to play.
While Harden’s performance was terrific, to credit him alone with ASU’s biggest win of the season would be unjust to his teammates and coaches, though, since Harden’s dynamic offensive performance in the game’s closing minutes wouldn’t have mattered if Arizona State hadn’t been so startling effective on defense.
The defense ASU played in the game’s final 13:15 was startling because of how effective the UCLA offense had been for the game’s first 31:45. UCLA had scored 54 points in approximately 39 possessions at that point, a 1.38 points per possession rate that rightfully had UCLA up by 11. Nikola Dragovic and Shipp had the range from deep for most of the game, and Darren Collison and Holiday did a good job staying patient and finding teammates for good shots.
But after that Roll jumper, UCLA had 10 more possessions in regulation — seven missed 2-pointers, two missed 3-pointers, one turnover and zero offensive rebounds. Five of those misses were by All-American point guard Collison, who may not have worn down toward the end of his 42 minutes of play, but he certainly didn’t look fresh while trying to dissect Sendek’s tricky zone down the stretch.
It didn’t get much better in overtime with Alfred Aboya’s eight-foot baseline jumper marking the Bruins’ only made field goal in overtime. UCLA couldn’t even get a shot off, down by three points with the clock winding down. You could have gotten great odds from a UCLA fan if you had bet him that the Bruins would make only two field goals in the games last 13:40 and that Roll and Aboya would be the two players to make them.
Those concerned with points per game rather than points per possession may not realize that Arizona State is really led by a dynamic offense and not a defense whose per-game numbers are more impressive thanks to Sendek’s preferred slow pace. Howland, however, could be excused if he didn’t believe that to be true based on ASU’s play down the stretch on Saturday, but he’d surely admit that his team didn’t run its sets well and didn’t hit the open looks it got.
That’s how Arizona State plays — the Sun Devils try to take away the interior with a pinching zone backed by Jeff Pendergraph’s shot-blocking. ASU combines good interior defense with a dearth of committed fouls, enticing the opposition into semi-open looks from three. UCLA attempted nearly half of its field goals from three (25-of-52) after averaging just a third of its attempts from deep for most of the season. With so much of the offense coming from outside, it was UCLA’s inability to hit more than 7-of-25 3-pointers over the ASU zone that allowed the Sun Devils back into the game.
On the other end, that terrific Arizona State offense that so few people talked about won with its strength — Harden and Pendergraph (9-for-10 with 18 points on Saturday) making 2-pointers. ASU is the best 2-point shooting and best all-around shooting team in the nation, so the Sun Devils’ 63 percent rate on twos Saturday isn’t far off of its 60 percent rate for the season.
Moreover, UCLA’s defense, which has been among the nation’s best in the last three seasons, is no longer dominant. The Bruins are more vulnerable inside on twos without Kevin Love and Lorenzo Mata-Real, and they also put their opponents on the line too often. UCLA’s best defensive trait is forcing turnovers thanks to the sticky hands of Collison, Shipp and Holliday, but ASU committed just eight turnovers. When you get to the line at a decent rate, hit 63 percent of your twos and commit just eight turnovers, your offense stands a pretty good chance of being efficient, and ASU’s was.
On CBS at halftime of Duke’s win over Georgetown, Seth Davis, while discussing Harden’s poor performance against USC, sent out a warning, guaranteeing us viewers that UCLA’s defense was better than USC’s. The numbers across the season disagree and so did the results on Saturday.
What does this mean for the Pac-10? After ASU lost tough road games at Cal and USC, it appeared that UCLA’s stiffest challenge for the conference title was falling hopelessly behind. But one win can change all of that. A look at the Pac-10 standings after the completion of play shows six teams between 3-2 and 4-1 in conference. With UCLA and Cal’s losses (Mike Montgomery lost in his undoubtedly frosty return to Palo Alto) on Saturday, no one is left undefeated.
Washington State appears the least fit to stick around with the top half of the league, but the remaining five teams — UCLA, Cal, Washington, Arizona State and USC — have rosters capable of taking the regular-season title as long as no elite team emerges. If there is to be an elite team, the two that went at each other for 45 minutes on Saturday are the best bets to be that, and, with ASU’s road win, James Harden, Herb Sendek and the Sun Devils — despite sitting a half-game back of a three-way tie for first — may have an upper hand in the race for the title.
