Arizona State needs to avoid foul trouble and crash the glass against Arizona

The Arizona Wildcats and Arizona State Sun Devils begin Pac-12 conference play against each other in Tempe on Sunday.

The Sun Devils have quickly molded into what new head coach Bobby Hurley wants from his program and have proved that with a tremendous start to the non-conference schedule. Wins over NC State, UNLV, Creighton and Texas A&M boast an impressive resume for ASU as they face a challenging Pac-12 schedule.

The Wildcats have been battling both preseason and regular season injuries through their non-conference schedule, surprising many with only one loss to their name. While a loss to Providence in the Wooden Legacy tournament prevented them from facing the No. 1 team in the country Michigan State, the Wildcats were still able to get their signature win against Gonzaga in Spokane.

Both teams head into their first game of 2016 faring better than most critics predicted and looking for a burst of momentum to the start of conference play.

For Arizona State, it would be their third straight year with a win over Arizona. It would also be their third straight year beating Arizona when they were ranked in the top 10.

For Arizona, it would bring that momentum with a win over their biggest rival and reassert their dominance as the premier basketball school in the state. With Hurley’s quality start to his coaching career in Tempe, that might be more important than ever for Sean Miller and his program.

Here are some keys to the game on Sunday.

Will the missing players from both teams play on Sunday?

Savon Goodman is arguably the best player on Arizona State and has missed four straight games because of personal reasons. No one knows if Goodman will play, but reports suggest that Arizona expects Goodman to play.

Goodman, an undersized power forward, is a relentless rebounder and fantastic athlete who thrives in games like this that depend so much on energy plays to pump up the home crowd. His aggressive play in the paint contributes to the most important areas that make Arizona State a good basketball team.

Having Goodman back is even more critical for the Sun Devils with Kaleb Tarczewski returning in a limited role for the Wildcats. Tarczewski has been out since late November and has missed the last eight games. Tarczewski and Gabe York provide the leadership on the team in spending all four of their years of college basketball with Arizona.

As a player, Tarczewski has true size for a center and has become better at scoring from the post every season. His true role for Arizona is on defense, where his tremendous rebounding and off-ball defense are the prototype for the type of play Miller wants.

While Arizona State does not have true size on the perimeter for Arizona to worry about defending, they will still be without their best perimeter defender Elliott Pitts.

Rebounding

The pedigree for Miller’s teams in the past couple of years has been freakish athleticism and high-energy players who would do anything to get a rebound. The likes of Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Stanley Johnson are no longer in Tucson and while there aren’t NBA level talents in Tempe, ASU has flipped the script.

Long and athletic wings who crash the glass like Goodman, Gerry Blakes, Willie Atwood, and Obinna Olenka will work tirelessly for Hurley.

The edge for ASU shows in the stats, where ASU has five of their eight rotation players averaging at least four rebounds a game and four of them are averaging at least 5.8 a game. Arizona only has three players averaging at least four rebounds a game and only two of them beat the 5.8 mark. Watch the glass.

Foul trouble

In the two meetings between these teams last season there were 86 fouls called. Even without Pitts, Arizona will be able to go 10 deep in this game without missing a beat. That’s not the case for Arizona State, who will go nine deep, but rely heavily on the likes of Goodman, Tra Holder and especially Eric Jacobsen, who is the only true size in the rotation to defend Tarczewski, Ryan Anderson and Dusan Ristic.

Two of those players will share the floor for most of the game for Arizona, so Arizona State will have to deal with the massive issue of not only dealing with size mismatches, but also avoiding foul trouble in defending those mismatches. It’s a huge test for Hurley in his first game against Arizona.

Shot consistency 

Arizona will play six players who shoot at least 50 percent from the field and Kadeem Allen narrowly misses that cut shooting 46.8 percent this year.

Arizona State has two players who take a large portion of shots at an inefficient rate. Tra Holder and Gerry Blakes have taken 36.5 percent of ASU’s shots this season and have shot it at 42.6 percent and 37.7 percent, respectively.

ASU will need to make up for that deficit by crashing the offensive glass and having those tenacious rebounders convert their chances around the rim.

That might sound like trouble for the Devils, but Arizona is only shooting 32.6 percent from three-point range this season, which is ranked 242nd in the nation.

If ASU can stay efficient shooting the ball and force Arizona to shoot threes, there should be a close game in Tempe.

 

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