Arizona State Turns the Tables on Cal in Lopsided Sun Devils Win
Cal served as a measuring stick for how much Arizona State has improved over the past two months.
On Jan. 2 in Berkeley, the Bears manhandled ASU by 24 points in a 74-50 victory. But on Thursday night in Tempe, Arizona, the red-hot Sun Devils dominated Cal in a 71-44 ASU triumph.
It was Cal's lowest scoring total of the season, and their lowest since the Bears scored 40 points in a 50-40 loss to UCLA on Jan. 19, 2020.
Against ASU, the Bears shot 30.5% from the field, including 25.8% in the second half, while ASU shot 53.6%, including 64.3% in the second half. It was ASU's biggest margin of victory this season.
"That's really about as poorly as we have played," Cal coach Mark Fox said, "and it's disappointing after playing as well as we did last weekend."
Cal (12-18, 5-14 Pac-12) could not carry the momentum from last Saturday's decisive 53-39 win over Stanford into Thursday's game against the Sun Devils, who may be the hottest team in the conference. ASU (13-16, 9-10) has now won six of its last seven games.
Cal remains in 10th place, but the Bears are just a game ahead of Utah, which is 4-15 in the conference with a game remaining on Saturday against Colorado. Cal finishes its regular season on Saturday against second-ranked Arizona in Tucson.
ASU is still hoping to finish with a .500 conference record, but the Bears made the Sun Devils look like title contenders in the second half, when ASU outscored Cal 40-19.
"As well as we played last Saturday, we played the opposite defensively today," Fox said. "We really collapsed on the defensive end in the second half."
ASU led by just six points at halftime, but dominated the first 11 minutes of the second half to take a 24-point lead. The last nine points in that ASU surge came on three-pointers on three consecutive possessions, two by Jay Heath and one by D.J. Horne.
That put Arizona State ahead 57-33 with 9:06 remaining in the game.
"When you don't score and they can fast break on every possession, you're going to have a hard time getting your defense set," Fox said.
Heath finished with 12 points, and Horne added 13. Alonzo Gaffney had 11 points, Kimani Lawrence had 12 points and Marreon Jackson had 11.
Jalen Celestine had 11 points for Cal, although he was just 4-for-12 from the field. No other Cal player finished in double figures.
Cal's starters shot 13-for-40 from the field, and Lars Thiemann, who has been productive lately, was bothered by an ankle injury sustained earlier in the week. He played just 19 minutes, took just one shot and scored just two points.
"I was surprised he was able to play," Fox said of Thiemann.
With Thiemann limited and Andre Kelly sidelined for the rest of the season, the Bears had no inside presence.
"We, offensively, are just trying to glue it together at the end because we're just banged up," Fox said.
The Sun Devils led 31-25 at halftime, but it would have been more if Grant Anticevich had hit two three-point shots in the final 2:17 of the half. That reduced what had been a 12-point Cal deficit less than three minutes before halftime.
Those two buckets gave Anticevich his only points of the half, but his six points were the most by a Bears player in the first 20 minutes. He finished the game with eight points.
The Bears shot just 35.7% from the field and committed eight turnovers in the first half, and Cal did well to be within six points at the intermission while scoring only 25 points.
The Sun Devils shot 42.9% and had just four turnovers in the first half and controlled play for most of the first half. Lawrence had eight points in the first 20 minutes for ASU, which looked like it was ready to blow the game open when it took a 29-17 lead with 2:43 left in the half. But Anticevich's two long-range buckets kept the Bears in the game.
However, ASU took control early in the second half.
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Cover photo by Joe Camporeale, USA TODAY Sports
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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
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