Entering Sunday, the ASU men’s basketball team was the only team from a major conference to have played just one game at home.
Coming off a bad loss to No. 10 Baylor on Thursday, playing at home had to be appealing. It didn’t matter though and the Sun Devils (3-4) fell to Richmond Sunday afternoon 67-61, the team’s third straight loss.
ASU hadn’t lost three straight games since the 2008-2009 season and hasn’t had a worse start after seven games the 1998-1999 season when Rob Evans took over the team.
“We didn’t capitalize on some opportunities to put the ball in the basket,” ASU coach Herb Sendek said. “We’re a team right now that doesn’t play with a very wide margin for error and we have to capitalize at a higher rate than we did today.”
By Andrew Boven
The loss came exactly 23 years after ASU’s only other meeting with the Spiders, a 76-63 loss in Tempe on Dec. 5, 1987.
ASU struggled at times on defense and couldn’t contain UR senior forward Justin Harper. Harper scored 15 points in the first half and finished with 23 points and seven rebounds.
“Your defense has to be really good if you’re going to shoot 34.5 percent from the field, 33 [percent] from the [three-point] line and under 70 [percent] from the foul line,” Sendek said.
ASU opened the game in a 5-0 hole and never led in the first half, shooting just 32 percent from the field. Sophomore guard Trent Lockett and senior Ty Abbott kept the Sun Devils in the game, combining for 17 points before halftime. Heading into the break, the Spiders (7-2) held a slim lead, 31-28.
“It’s very difficult to play a team that’s so committed to playing a zone the whole time,” UR coach Chris Mooney said. “We got into a pretty good rhythm.”
On the first possession of the second half, ASU senior guard Jamelle McMillan sunk a three-pointer to tie the game for the first time since it was 0-0. Two minutes and 13 seconds into the quarter, freshman forward Kyle Cain went to the basket for a dunk that gave ASU its first lead of the game, 36-34.
Cain scored 14 points in the game, 11 of which came in the second half, and grabbed five rebounds. It was a Cain jumper that again put the Sun Devils ahead 45-44 without about 10 minutes to play, but the Spiders climbed back and took the lead with eight minutes to go and never trailed again.
Ahead 56-55 as the game neared its end, the Spiders went on a 6-0 run that put the Sun Devils away. ASU threatened late, but only came within four points.
“We’re going to make some big changes,” Lockett said. “We’ve just got to hit the reset button and come back strong.”
Despite winning the rebounding battle, ASU suffered in its post game as UR outscored the Sun Devils 26-8 in the paint. With struggling sophomore center Ruslan Pateev and two freshmen in Jordan Bachynski and Cain, ASU’s post game remains a work in progress.
“We’re playing three first-year post players so we don’t necessarily score a lot of points in the paint,” Sendek said. “Kyle Cain in the second half was terrific and you could see what a good player he’s going to be.”
Bachysnki missed Sunday’s game after spraining his ankle in practice Saturday. Sendek said after the game that the sprain didn’t appear to be severe.
Mooney was pleased with the production he got out of his big men, as senior center Dan Geriot scored 11 points to add to Harper’s production.
“We don’t emphasize statistics all that much in our program, but I imagine that’s a pretty good number against a zone team,” Mooney said of UR’s 26 points in the paint.
Senior forward Rihards Kuksiks finished the game tied for a team high 14 points, including four three-pointers. Lockett notched a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
“We can hope that we learn from every experience and just keep working,” Sendek said. “We put ourselves in a position to play a very rigorous schedule, but right now we’re not capitalizing with wins.
“We go into every game wanting to win very badly, but we’re playing some veteran, very successful programs here early in the season and we have not been good enough to win the games.”
Reach the reporter at tyler.lockman@asu.edu
