Men’s Hoops Update: In Between Scoring Bursts, James Harden Finds His Teammate
Arizona State sophomore James Harden lit up the scoreboard at the 76 Classic over the weekend, and for the first time this season Sun Devil teammate Jeff Pendergraph was along for the ride.
(Image courtesy Slam Online)
Last Week (2-1): 84-56 W vs. Charlotte; 87-78 L vs. Baylor; 88-58 W vs. UTEP; all in the 76 Classic for a 3rd place finish
What Did We Learn: The old screaming and flexing Jeff Pendergraph that we love is back. After a self-described “super funk” caused a terrible start to the year, the senior averaged nearly 17 points and nine rebounds against some legit competition in the 76 Classic. Even more encouraging, Pendergraph shot 74 percent from the field and 84 percent from the line in the three games.
We also learned that ASU still has a lot of room for improvement. Baylor’s red hot shooting from beyond the arc buried ASU before the Devils could adjust. Those sort of defensive adjustments will have to come quicker in Pac-10 play, but at least ASU rebounded against UTEP — holding the Miners to 4-for-17 shooting from long range.
Star of the Week: With all due respect to Pendergraph, this James Harden guy kind of stole the show. After scoring 32 points in the Baylor loss, he came out angry against UTEP and absolutely dominated with 40 points, eight rebounds and four assists. He shot 68 percent from the field, 66 percent from long range and 90 percent from the line in the three games. Amazing.
Some food for thought: ASU has scored 450 points in its first six games and Harden has accounted for 36 percent of those points (27ppg). When Eddie House set ASU’s season scoring mark of 23ppg in 1999-00, that was 29 percent of the team total.
What’s Next: ASU is home this week to take on 1-5 Jackson St. Thursday night and 5-0 Nebraska Sunday afternoon. The Jackson St. game shouldn’t be close, but the Nebraska game is critical for a few reasons. First, revenge. Nebraska shut down ASU in Lincoln last year and the Sun Devils will be looking to do the same in Tempe. Aside from that, the selection committee is always watching. Hopefully ASU won’t be on the bubble this year, but a home loss to Nebraska would not reflect well if it is.
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Hopefully Abbott, Kuksiks, McMillan, Glasser, etc can chip in a little bit more on the scoring end. It’s never good to get too attached to just one guy scoring all the points, we are going to start to see some exotic defenses designed to slow Harden down and wear him out, and we need to be able to punish teams who don’t respect our other players. Plus given that Harden and Pendegraph will be gone next year, it’d be nice to see other guys who will be back showing they can be counted on in years to come.
Hey just curious — don’t teams go to zone defenses against teams that *can’t* shoot? Baylor had to be licking their chops, since they live outside the arc anyway.
It was a gritty rally in the final, like, three minutes, but never should have come to that.
Wasn’t one of the criticisms that NCState fans had when we hired Sendek was that he stuck to man-to-man defenses even when a zone might have been appropriate? I almost wonder if Friday night was a situation where sticking with a zone defense was a mistake and we should have been going to a straight man D. There is obviously something to be said for sticking with what has worked, and the way Baylor was shooting it might not have mattered, but maybe changing things up with a different look once it was obvious that the Bears were in a zone might have shaken things up a bit so we didn’t have to play from so far behind.
@beatuofa, considering the athletes on our team I think we’re kind of stuck in a zone. Rihards Kuksiks and Derek Glasser offer what you need offensively, but I’m not sure they can do much man-to-man on the other end. Same goes for some of our backups. We may be forced into the zone by the lack of athleticism on our roster.
If anyone knows more about hoops than me, I’d gladly hear your take. I just like watching the dunks and stuff.
Thoughts?