Regular Season Game #2
Arizona State vs Princeton
The season is finally getting under way as we welcome rival
Princeton to Tempe, AZ for a matchup tonight that I am quite excited for. It’ll be a great chance for us to see early
in the season just how good this team can be.
Sadly tonight we will be without Steven Chapman who was slightly injured
in our win against Alabama A&M, he will likely miss 3-5 games total with
his sprained ACL.
Without further ado, let’s get this recap started! Both
teams were evenly matched coming into the game as they traded scores through
the first 6 minutes and neither team had gained much ground as the score stood
at 12-12. A 5-0 Princeton run gave them their largest lead to that point at
17-12 which ASU answered with an 8-0 run of their own to reclaim a 20-17 lead.
This back and forth continued for the remainder of the half with the largest
lead being Princeton’s 6 point lead (30-24) with under 5 minutes left in the
half. However back-to-back jumpers by Marvin Watkins in the last minute helped
ASU head to the locker room tied up 37-37.
Despite trailing most of the way in the first half, ASU came
out and wanted to dictate tempo a bit more in the 2nd as they opened
the half on a 9-4 run over the first 6 minutes (low scoring start to the half)
and taking a 46-41 lead. Princeton cut into that lead to tie the game but
another ASU run opened up their largest lead of the game at 61-51 with 7:47
remaining. Sadly at about the 4 minute mark of the half ASU gets ice cold and
only manages to score one more point the rest of the half. So the 65-57 lead
with 4:11 remaining slowly crumbles away and the Swearingen and Kuiper both
blow layups in the final 10 seconds that could have sealed it but instead we
headed to OT with the score tied 67-67.
The struggles of those final 4 minutes only seemed to
continue going into OT as Princeton scored on their first five possessions and had a 77-71 lead with
under 3 minutes left and sadly that proved to be too much for ASU to overcome
as Princeton left the state of Arizona with a 84-77 victory. It was a
disappointing end to what felt like it was going to be a banner win for us. I’m
quite disappointed in our ability to close out the game as an 8 pt lead with 4
minutes left should be enough for a team of our caliber to hold on for the win.
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