By Josh Green
TUCSON- This past week, Arizona State basketball head coach Herb Sendek said that Arizona forward Derrick Williams had the potential to be a first team All-American and was one of the best players he had seen in some time.
On Saturday afternoon, Williams gave some validity to Sendek’s statements, scoring 31 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, leading the Wildcats to a 80-69 victory over the Sun Devils. The win was Arizona’s first over ASU at the McKale Center in the last four seasons.
The Wildcats improved to 15-3 on the year, including 4-1 in Pac-10 play, whole the Sun Devils fell to 9-8 and 1-4 in Pac-10 play.
ASU started well, taking a 15-8 lead in the first six minutes and silencing a raucous crowd of 14, 106. But UA responded with a 21-3 run en route to a 43-34 lead at the half.
The Wildcats led by double-digits for a good amount of the second half, but things got interesting late in the game, as ASU freshman Jordan Bachynski and walk-on guard Marcus Jackson led a 15-6 spurt that cut the lead to 61-57. UA was resilient, however, answering right back with a 7-0 run and putting the game out of reach.
Trent Lockett led ASU in scoring with 17, and Ty Abbott chipped in 14, but the Sun Devils simply had no match for Williams, who imposed his will with the rest of the UA frontcourt. The Wildcats outrebounded the Sun Devils 35-21, including a 14-4 edge on offensive rebounds that led to 14 second chance points.
“It’s hard to stop a team like Arizona on the first try, let alone the second, third or fourth tries,” Sendek said after the game.
The trio of Williams, Jesse Perry and Solomon Hill combined for 56 of UA’s 80 points. The Wildcats also did a great job of converting free throws, going 26-of-31, including 15-of-16 from Williams.
While the end result on paper was a loss for ASU, Sendek was encouraged with the team’s performance.
“I can’t tell you how hard our guys work,” he said. “We see streaks of encouraging play and moments where we have some really good runs. We just haven’t been able to find any consistency early in this Pac-10 season.”
Things don’t get any easier for ASU, which will travel to the Washington schools next weekend before playing host to the LA schools.
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Notes
-ASU point guard Jamelle McMillan returned to the starting lineup after sitting out the last few games with a groin injury. He said he felt comfortable on the court.
-Keala King played for the first time since the Stanford game on January 6th.
-Arizona head coach Sean Miller is now 2-1 against ASU.
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