Feb 13, 2004
By Brian Gomez, TheSunDevils.com
It's likely not the type of win players will tell their grandkids about 40 years from now, but the Arizona State men's basketball team will gladly take it.
With open arms - and a bunch of wide smiles.
Sparked by a frenzied comeback Thursday night, the Sun Devils carried over their momentum into overtime, and knocked off UCLA 74-62 at Wells Fargo Arena to snap a four-game losing streak.
"They really toughened up and sucked it up, and decided they wanted to win that basketball game, and that they were going to do whatever it took," said ASU head coach Rob Evans, whose team erased a 14-point, second-half deficit on the strength of some sharp shooting and defensive aggressiveness that came just in the knick of time.
The Sun Devils (9-12, 3-9 Pac-10) won despite scoring only one field goal in overtime. That's because they went 12-for-12 from the free-throw line in the extra period, as UCLA scored just two points, both of which also came from the charity stripe.
Sophomore forward Ike Diogu had a double-double with 27 points and 13 rebounds, and junior guard Steve Moore marked 14 points, although senior forward Justin Allen was the unsung hero, scoring his team's first four points in overtime to give ASU a lead it would not relinquish.
Allen made two free throws with 4:23 left, including one that banked off the glass, thenput backsenior swingman Jamal Hill's miss less than two minutes later. The basket was the lone field goal either team scored after regulation.
"When I go in, I just try to play as hard as I can because I'm not as athletic as a lot of people, and I don't run and jump that well," said Allen, whose 11 points were the most he had scored since he overcame Hodgkin's disease before his sophomore season. "I know that when I go in there, I've just got to play as hard as I can and hit people. When I do that, coach usually lets me stay in there, as long as I'm bringing energy."
The Bruins (10-10, 6-6) had their chances down the stretch, but couldn't generate much offense, as junior swingman Dijon Thompson went cold from the field. Thompson finished with a team-high 18 points, only two of which came in overtime.
The game looked like a lost cause late in regulation when UCLA opened a seven-point lead with 1:05 remaining on junior guard Cedric Bozeman's driving layup off the glass.
But ASU responded like never before this season.
Diogu's layup trimmed the deficit to five points with 56 seconds left. Redshirt freshman guard Kevin Kruger sank a three-pointer after Thompson's trip to the line resulted in only one point, and Jamal Hill buried a game-tying trey following two missed free throws by sophomore center Ryan Hollins.
UCLA threatened on its final possession, however, Bozeman came away empty on a drive to the hoop. Diogu rebounded, and Moore's running, 30-footer at the buzzer clanked off the front of the rim.
"If you looked up in the stands, a few people started leaving because they thought the game was over, but we're not ever going to quit," said Diogu, who snapped out of a funk with a 9-for-14 effort from the field and a 7-for-8 outing from the free-throw line in a career-high 41 minutes. "We're past that stage of giving up, and we just willed our way through it."
In overtime, five different Sun Devils contributed from the line. Allen made his two attempts and Moore went 4-for-4, while Kruger, Diogu and junior point guard Jason Braxton hit two apiece.
"Because (Braxton) gets fouled a lot, and he was struggling with free throws, it looks like we're not a good free-throw shooting team, but we are, and he stepped up and made his tonight," said Evans, whose team went 19-for-20 from the line, the best free-throw percentage in school history for a minimum of 20 attempts.
UP NEXT: ASU returns to action at 6 p.m. MST Saturday against Southern California at Wells Fargo Arena. The game can be seen on Fox Sports Arizona and heard on ESPN Radio 860 AM.
Reach the reporter at brian.gomez@asu.edu.
By MEL REISNER
AP Sports Writer
TEMPE, Ariz. - Ike Diogu had 27 points and 13 rebounds, and Justin Allen scored four of his season-high 11 points in overtime, leading Arizona State to a 74-62 win over UCLA on Thursday night.
Stevie Moore added 14 points for the Sun Devils (9-12, 3-9 Pac-10), who snapped a four-game losing streak while beating the Bruins for the fourth time in five games.
UCLA's Dijon Thompson had 18 points and T.J. Cummings scored 13.
But the Bruins (10-10, 6-6), who snapped a six-game losing streak with an 80-75 win over Washington on Saturday, went 0-for-11 from the floor in overtime.
That allowed Arizona State to ride out the game at the foul line after Allen made two free throws and a basket in the first 2:09. The Sun Devils were 12-of-12 from the line in the extra period and 19-of-20 for the game. Allen had a career-high 16 points during his freshman season, but has been struggling to get back to form since he was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2000.
He got an offensive rebound against Cummings, who fouled out in the play 37 seconds into the extra period. Allen's free throws broke a 60-60 tie.
Then Allen made it 64-62 with a putback with 2:51 left.
The Sun Devils, who trailed by 14 with 12:35 left in regulation, made up a six-point deficit in the final 36 seconds on 3-pointers by Kevin Kruger and Jamal Hill.
The second tied it at 60 and forced overtime.
Until then, the Sun Devils were within one point twice.
Arizona State had just one field goal in the first 7:44 of the second half, and Cummings had eight points during an 18-4 run that began with the last basket of the second half.
Brian Morrison capped it with a 3-pointer, and the Bruins took a 43-29 lead with 12:35 left.
No more than six points separated the teams in the first half.
UCLA got its first lead at 11-10 on a 3-pointer by Morrison with 11:14 left. The lead changed hands three more times before Trevor Ariza made a 14-foot turnaround for an 18-17 Bruins lead with 5:24 remaining.
After Diogu tied it with a foul shot, Cummings made a 3-pointer - his first points of the game - with 3:11 to go, and the best Arizona State could manage was two more ties before Thompson lifted UCLA to a 27-25 halftime lead with a one-handed putback at the buzzer.