It was the Alonzo Gaffney show in the first half. The Sun Devil forward scored 17 in the first half and went 5/5 from three to give ASU a strong 44-29 lead into the half. To put that in perspective. Gaffney has gone 1-17 from deep coming into this game. The forward added three blocks to his first-half box score as well. Arizona State has gone 4-39 in the first half from three this year. They went 7/12 in this half.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!It’s not even a question that this was the best half of basketball ASU has played all year. Their next-highest first-half score was 28 points. They scored 49 points during the entire game last night versus BYU. They nearly matched that in this half tonight. BYU was honestly letting them shoot tonight because ASU hadn’t proven they could make shots, but they did today.
ASU didn’t go cold at any point during that first half. Their longest drought was three minutes. It started back and forth. No team made consecutive buckets for the first seven minutes. That included three Alonzo Gaffney threes, however. ASU finally took a 21-14 lead around the 11-minute mark. However, like they do, Vandy came back. Three players got three different layups to bring the score to within one, but ASU didn’t fall apart like we had seen in previous games. Jamiya Neal and Gaffney made back-to-back threes to give them back a nine-point lead.
Now, that was about it for Vandy. They only made three baskets in the last five minutes of the half, while ASU finally turned on the jets. It started with an 11-0 run that included two more Gaffney threes before Jamiya Neal drained a huge layup with five seconds left in the half to give ASU a 15-point lead headed to half.
Neal finished with 7 points, and Jose Perez was huge in this game with six points but fantastic passing. Arizona State shot over 50% from the field and 55% from three, which we have never seen this year from this team. They were ranked 350th out of 351 teams in three-point percentage so far this year.
Evan Taylor was the star for Vandy in this half. He had 12 in the first half for the Commodores. Vandy, who is a top three-point shooting team, only shot 2-11 from three. In a poor performance, they fell fast with how hot ASU was shooting. Can Arizona State keep the gas on and win this game?
