Second-half surge helps Sun Devils down Hawai’i
A second-half rally saw ASU come from behind to beat Hawai'i 83-76 in Honolulu on Thursday.
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A second-half rally saw the Sun Devils come from behind to beat Hawai’i 83-76 in Honolulu on Thursday.
Playing the Rainbow Warriors in Hawai’i ahead of next week’s Maui Invitational, Arizona State notched its 49th win under Bobby Hurley when trailing at the half and improved to 4-1 on the season.
Bryce Ford led the way for ASU with a season-high 20 points on 7-for-11 shooting. The junior, who is from Scottsdale and transferred from Toledo, had 13 of his points in the second half and was instrumental in Arizona State’s come-from-behind victory.
HE'S HEATING UP 😈@BryceFord21 ties the game at 47! He has a game-high 17 points! pic.twitter.com/tAl7UfvVgQ
— Sun Devil MBB (@SunDevilHoops) November 21, 2025
Moe Odum added 15 points and six assists for the Sun Devils. The senior from the Bronx struggled to find his shot though, especially in the second half where he went 2-for-7 from the field and 1-for-5 from 3.
Moe with the nice finish at the rim 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/tHrcYP3GpR
— Sun Devil MBB (@SunDevilHoops) November 21, 2025
How did ASU make comeback against Hawai’i?
Hawaii led 65-57 with 7:15 to play before Arizona State rattled off 10 straight points to take the lead. The Sun Devils wound up outscoring the Rainbow Warriors 26-11 over the final 7:15.
Massamba Diop picked up his fourth foul with 8:36 remaining and Hurley opted to take the 7-foot-1 freshman out of the game, but the move paid dividends as Allen Mukeba came in and instantly made an impact.
Aside from one possession in the final 25 seconds, Mukeba played the rest of the way after coming in for Diop and had eight points in the final six minutes.
Playing in their first road game of the season, the Sun Devils got off to a slow start offensively and trailed by as many as eight early. ASU opened the game 2-for-11 from the field in the opening six minutes and missed its first five free throws. ASU finished 24-for-37 from the foul line.
The Sun Devils shot just 39% from the field in the opening half and struggled to get much going on offense. The Rainbow Warriors had 22 points in the paint in the first half to the Sun Devils’ 10.
ASU took its first lead when Noah Meeusen made a 3-pointer with 53 seconds left in the first half. The Sun Devils trailed by one at the break and didn’t retake the lead until Odum’s free throw with 5:30 remaining during the 10-0 run.
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Comments
7 Comments
Good comeback win for ASU tonight, vs a really bad Hawaii team, but for over half the Game, ASU's effort level and concentration were simply pathetic. Only the performance of the Zebras was worse, as evidenced by 4 straight calls early in the 1st half, that the Zebras made vs ASU defenders where ESPN+ replays evidenced that all those calls was pure phantom, because ASU Defenders didn't even touch the Hawaii players. The same kind of phantom calls almost doomed Arizona vs UConn this week.
While ASU was victim of even more of those phantom calls throughout the remainder of the game, Hurley was pretty quiet, which I took as his acknowledgement that he feels like complaining is futile, because the Zebras aren't listening to Hurley, and will only punish him if he loudly points out how inept they are or draws attention to their bonehead calls were they screwed up royally. In close 2nd for the race tonight to win the Most Pathetic Award, just behind the Zebras, were the Hometown announcers who were broadcasting on ESPN+ Throughout the game the pair spoke glowingly of how great Hawaii was, and how they would go dancing when, IMHO, the reality is that's their fans should be thinking NIT. The absence of their audio, made the game much more enjoyable for me to watch - I muted the Sound after the 5 minute mark in the 1st half.
While early in the season I was really optimistic about Massamba Diop, my evaluation of him is dropping each game. Granted, Diop has immense physical talents. For his size, he has elite quickness and athleticism, but what's going to kill his career, is that he also has the basketball IQ of 2nd grader. From what I've seen, no signs of improvement in said IQ are appearing on the horizon. He appears to have no concept of what Defensive position. I've yet to see him effectively block out anyone. He's someone who really needs more coaching.
Hence, why I call him Play-in Bobby. Had to play the extra game to get in, all three time he made the Dance.
At the point of repeating myself, who wants it? Bad facility, no talent. No culture to build on. Not competitive in NIL. Gambling cloud. Top 3 toughest leagues to play in. Best last season was what, 1980 with Wulk? You either get a mid-major guy who over reaches, a show cause guy, or ya buy a guy out of retirement. Rossini is a MLB baseball guy, he doesn't have a network of guys he has built a hire list from. Sound familiar? Rod A hires an out of box Herm. We all saw how that went. Besides, it gonna take until '29 to get the pissers, popcorn machines and HVAC fixed in that run down parking garage y'all call an arena.