Very impressive win, especially on the defensive side. Dominated the boards and shared the ball really well. This team is Really Good. It will be interesting to see how they stack up in the SEC, which is loaded this year.
As a reminder, that ASU team was in the tournament field before today in Bracketology (although as a last 4 in).
This ASU game was one I thought would be our most difficult non-conference challenge. Clearly I had no idea just how stifling our defense would be
Just another great performance. Knew we had to defend well, and this was dominant on that end: .892 ppp, almost 85% def reb rate, allowed 28% from the arc to a team that shoot almost 40%, and just locked down Sanon. Showings like this are what Golden built this team for. Offensively, Clayton scored at a terrific rate (58% eff fg), Richard was as aggressive as I've seen him on that end, and Martin was quietly our most productive player (15, 9, and 6 on 75% eff fg and a team high 6 assists). As I said in another thread, ASU protects the rim well and rebounds well defensively, so our struggles scoring in the paint aren't unexpected--but our offensive rebounding rate was still solid.
So next AP poll does Seth Davis move us up into the top 16? I am sure that it would pain him to do so. And the three other voters that didn't have us in the Top 25 vote for us?
We knew that we were solid on offense but now knowing we can also be good on D is awesome. But while we played a decent team today we have yet to play an elite team. And UNC I am not thinking that you are an elite team. LOL.
KenPom has them at #22 offensive rating. That's our SOS weakness right now: #292 on opponent offensive rating.
And not very good at D. Bama crushed them at home. They beat a decent Dayton team by two on a neutral court. I think we have a better than 50-50 chance with this one.
As I have already posted, going undefeated in 2024 would be very nice. After that, who in the heck knows what is going to happen. But it should be fun watching.
