Huskies sweep Sun Devils
But it’s not easy as Washington has to hold off ASU in second half
TEMPE, Ariz. – Scott Suggs scored 16 points and hit a 3-pointer with 34 seconds left, helping Washington hold off Arizona State 68-59 Saturday night in Pacific-12 Conference men’s basketball.
Washington (15-13, 7-8 Pac-12) led by 12 midway through the second half and nearly blew it all, allowing the Sun Devils to pull within one. Abdul Gaddy, who had 13 points, hit a big jumper and Suggs followed with his 3 to keep Arizona State from completing the comeback in its seniors’ final home game.
UW dominated the Sun Devils inside in the teams’ previous meeting and again gave them trouble, grabbing 13 more rebounds and scoring 14 points off 14 offensive boards.
In its second loss to the Huskies, Arizona State (20-8, 9-6) came up short in its bid to match the school record for home wins with 16. Ruslan Pateev, Jahii Carson and Evan Gordon had 10 points each for the Sun Devils.
The Huskies struggled after that earlier win, losing four of their next five games, the worst of it coming against No. 12 Arizona on Wednesday night, when the Huskies fell apart in the second half of an 18-point loss. Washington let the Wildcats run away from them coming out of halftime and coach Lorenzo Romar questioned his team’s effort after it was over.
It didn’t help that the Huskies couldn’t shoot straight, hitting 1 of 11 from 3-point range while shooting 30 percent overall.
Washington was much better against Arizona State, though not quite at the same level as the previous meeting with the Sun Devils.
The Huskies made five of their first nine shots and slightly cooled off after that, going 14 of 29 to lead 32-28 at halftime. Suggs led the way with 10 points.
Washington kept rolling to start the second half, hitting 7 of its first 10 shots to build the lead to 49-37.
But Arizona State rallied against the Huskies before and made another run at them behind its defense.
Holding the Huskies without a field goal for nearly six minutes, the Sun Devils trimmed Washington’s lead to 57-56 on a putback by Eric Jacobsen.
That was as close as Washington would let them get. Gaddy hit a jumper late in the shot clock and Suggs followed with a 3 from the corner that made it 64-58 with 34 seconds left and the Huskies had the season sweep.