After ASU's win over the Colorado Buffaloes, senior guard Tra Holder talked about some keys to the team's victory. ASU will travel to the University of Washington to play the Huskies at 9 p.m. on Thursday, February 1, 2017.
Anthony Totri - Reporter:
Reporting for The State Press, I'm Anthony Totri alongside senior point guard Tra Holder. Tra, you guys won 80-66 tonight, 0-10 at the end of the first half from three. And then it was just you hit four, Shannon hit four and Kodi had one. Where did those threes come from?
Tra Holder - ASU men's basketball senior guard:
I think just being a senior and stepping up to the challenge we knew we had to make shots because our opponents were in a zone, so that's what we did. Once we started making threes I felt like everything came easy, driving lanes and stuff like that. So if teams want to keep playing zones then we gotta keep shooting, stay confident and knock them down.
Totri:
And a lot of those threes came off of turnovers from Colorado. You guys forced 17 turnovers tonight. That defensive presence was something we saw a lot of maybe in non-conference play. Is that something you guys have been looking to get back to?
Holder:
Yeah, you know, we usually.... I ain't gonna tell you what we did, but we watched film and coach challenged us on the defensive end and that was my mindset today. Even though I had a good offensive game, I wanted to have great offensive game, I wanted to play great defense and I tried to do that for my team.
Totri:
You guys went into the first half all tied up with Colorado but down low it looked like Romello White and De'Quon Lake were kind of keeping you in the game early on. What do those guys bring to the table?
Holder:
They bring a lot. De'Quon, you know, he had a great dunk in the first half, he jumped over somebody. And then mello, he's getting back to being himself and being a beast down there. But you know, he's a freshman and everybody has that adjustment curve. I had it. You know, it's a part of basketball, it's a part of college. He'll get back and he's going to be great for us like he was early in the year.
Totri:
Thank you, Tra. The Sun Devils down Colorado 80-66 and they will take on the Washington Huskies, February 1. Reporting for The State Press, I'm Anthony Totri.
Reach the reporter at kmarlin1@asu.edu or follow @kynan_marlin on Twitter.
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