Arizona State shoots the lights out in blowout win over Oregon

TEMPE — The Arizona State Sun Devils shot the lights out in an 81-57 win over the Oregon Ducks at Desert Financial Arena on Thursday night.

ASU finished the game shooting an outstanding 57% from the field (31-of-54) while converting 45% of its three-point attempts (9-of-20). Oddly enough, however, the Sun Devils were quite poor from the free throw line, only managing to go 10-for-18 (56%).

Nobody exemplified that more than Arizona State guard Marreon Jackson, who finished the night with 16 points on 6-of-8 shooting (75%) and 4-for-6 from three (67%). However, Jackson wasn’t able to hit a single free throw on his three attempts from the charity stripe. The guard also had four assists, four rebounds and one steal in 27 minutes played on the night.

Earlier in the week, head coach Bobby Hurley told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta that he wanted to get Jackson and guard D.J. Horne on the floor together more. Hurley was a man of his word.

Less than 90 seconds into the contest, Jackson checked in off the bench and had an immediate impact by nailing a three on ASU’s first offensive possession with him in the game. He finished the opening 20 minutes with 16 points on nearly a perfect 6-of-7 (86%) from the floor and a whopping 4-for-5 mark from three. In fact, Jackson didn’t miss from the floor in the first half until a contested three missed at the halftime buzzer.

“Marreon again came in right away — we wanted to get him in the game early for matchup reasons and he was a big part of it offensively with his threes when we were stuck on nine for a little bit there. He really got us going,” Hurley said postgame.

Jackson was joined by Horne and Kimani Lawrence as Sun Devils who scored 16 points in the ballgame, but it was Jalen Graham who finished the night as the game’s leading scorer with 18. Graham just missed out on a double-double with nine rebounds, but added two blocks and two steals in addition to hitting a three and this behind-the-back dime.

POINT GRAHAM 😮‍💨 @jalengrahamm5

📺 ESPN
💻 https://t.co/D4jrFjnhde pic.twitter.com/R48oPHIzqH

— Sun Devil MBB (@SunDevilHoops) February 18, 2022

“Any time you see Jalen Graham dropping behind-the-back passes for layups, you know you’re moving the ball well,” Hurley said. “He was terrific again and our interior passing and then finding our shooters — I thought our guys did a really good job with 19 assists.”

On the other side of the court was Oregon (17-9; 10-5 Pac-12), who couldn’t seem to buy a bucket on the night.

The Ducks finished with an abysmal 34.5% mark from the field on 19-of-55 shooting and an even worse 19.2% clip from beyond the arc at 5-for-26. The only offensive category Oregon bested Arizona State in was free throws (14-for-19 for 73.7%), but other than that, the Sun Devils absolutely outplayed the Ducks in every facet of the game.

The win also completes the season sweep for ASU (9-15; 5-9) over Oregon on the year, as well as marks Arizona State’s third win over a top-four team in the Pac-12 standings — two of which have come in the Sun Devils’ last three home games.

“I think when you combine both ends of the floor and you talk about just the effort we were giving defensively, just how clean we were playing offensive and the shots we were getting and the shots we were converting,” Hurley said.

“I mean really the only thing we didn’t do was make some free throws in the first half, otherwise it was as good as a performance as we’ve had all year.”

UP NEXT

ASU hosts the Oregon State Beavers (3-21; 1-13), who come in on an 11-game losing streak on Saturday at 6 p.m. on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.

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