By Josh Green
ALBUQUERQUE, NM- Coming off a season that lacked a signature non-conference win, the Arizona State Sun Devils faced a very stiff test in their 2010-2011 season opener against New Mexico in The Pit. Unfortunately, they failed.
The Pit is known as well of the most hostile environments in college basketball, and ASU became the venue’s latest victim on Tuesday night, falling to the Lobos 76-62.
New Mexico, who improved to 2-0, overcame a slow start and used a 20-0 run to turn a 13-7 deficit into a 27-13 lead.
“We came out hot and started scoring,” sophomore forward Trent Lockett said. “But they called timeout, and the momentum switched. We can’t let that happen next time.”
Still, the Sun Devils came back, going on a 9-2 run to cut the halftime deficit to 35-29. They got to within 50-45 late in the second half, but costly turnovers led to back-to-back three’s by Curtis Dennis and two more by Kendall Williams, which gave the Lobos a 62-49 lead with 6:50 left in the game.
“We had a couple sequences where if we make better plays we give ourselves a chance,” head coach Herb Sendek said. “But we didn’t do that and the lead went right back up in a blink.”
The one positive of the game for ASU was the play of Lockett, who led all scorers with a career-high 22 points in addition to grabbing eight rebounds.
“I’m extremely proud of the way he’s progressed from the inside and outside,” senior point guard Jamelle McMillan said of Lockett. “He did a great job for us tonight, and we tried to feed off of him.”
ASU’s senior core of McMillan, Ty Abbott and Rihards Kuksiks struggled, combining to shoot 6-of-22 from the floor.
ASU will try and rebound from the loss on Saturday in its home opener against University of Alabama-Birmingham.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 at 7:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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