LAS VEGAS - In this town, luck can change with the wind. Or a flurry of mistakes down the stretch.
Like gamblers playing slot machines along the Las Vegas Strip, ASU went cold at the worst time Friday night. That left the door open for Texas-El Paso senior guard Filiberto Rivera to break the bank.
Rivera nailed three three-pointers in the closing seven minutes, lifting UTEP to a 66-65 victory over ASU in the Las Vegas Holiday Invitational semifinals at Valley High School.
UTEP (3-0) advances to play Southern Illinois in Saturday’s championship game. ASU (2-1) will face Vanderbilt in the consolation game.
Junior guard Tyrone Jackson gave ASU a chance to win, but missed a driving left-handed layup with 2 seconds left. Sophomore forward Serge Angounou couldn’t get more than a hand on the rebound as time expired.
Even before Jackson’s miss, the Sun Devils had their chances, although several costly mistakes proved too much to overcome. ASU went scoreless on three consecutive possessions, as junior guard Jason Braxton clanked a jumper, sophomore guard Kevin Kruger missed three straight free throws and senior guard Steve Moore turned the ball over.
ASU head coach Rob Evans was pleased with Jackson’s last-second attempt.
“That’s the look we wanted,” said Evans, whose team squandered a seven-point lead in the second half. “Tyrone did exactly what we wanted him to do. We wanted him to go to the basket and get to the rim, and possibly get contact and make the basket. He had a chance to do both.”
Jackson said he should have converted the final shot, which came after Angounou rebounded UTEP freshman guard Vernon Carr’s missed free throw.
“We had no timeouts, so I got the ball and I pushed it up,” Jackson said. “It was a left-handed layup. I’m a Division I basketball player. I’ve got to make those.”
Moore paced the Sun Devils with 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the field, including a 3-for-6 effort from three-point range. Junior forward Ike Diogu, who sat on the bench in foul trouble for more than nine minutes in the second half, managed 15 points, six rebounds and a career-high-tying five blocks. Sophomore guard Bryson Krueger had 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting from three-point range.
Diogu was whistled for his third and fourth fouls in the opening five minutes of the second half, forcing Evans to go with a bigger lineup that featured Angounou and sophomore Keith Wooden at the frontline positions.
In the second half, Diogu sat from the 15:10 mark until the 6:01 mark - a span of more than nine minutes. He scored just four points after coming back, as his teammates again struggled to get him the ball against the zone.
“It was frustrating not being able to be out there with my team,” said Diogu, who ran his double-digit scoring streak to 62 consecutive games, thanks to a 9-for-10 effort from the free-throw line. “But fouls are part of the game.”
Moore picked up the slack in Diogu’s absence, scoring his team’s first seven points as ASU nursed a 48-44 lead. He nailed a pair of jumpers and also scored on a layup after Kruger fired a sharp pass to the post.
UTEP cut the deficit to 50-48 with 8:02 left after senior forward Omar Thomas converted a three-point play. ASU responded on the next possession, grabbing a 52-48 lead on Jackson’s runner off the glass.
Krueger ignited the Sun Devils in the first half, nailing four three-pointers. Moore also drained a pair of shots from beyond the arc, including a bomb from the wing that put ASU ahead 16-12 with 15:04 left.
With Moore and Diogu in foul trouble in the first half, the Sun Devils got solid contributions from others. Angounou scored his first points of the season on a baseline jumper, and later tipped in a Diogu miss. Sophomore forward Wilfried Fameni tipped in an Angounou miss for his first points since the season opener.
Buoyed by 43.6 percent shooting, ASU led 41-36 at intermission. It could have gone into halftime with a 41-31 lead, but UTEP junior swingman Jason Williams knocked down a three-pointer, and then Rivera quickly scored after stealing a Braxton pass.
Reach the reporter at brian.gomez@asu.edu.