TEMPE — Arizona State men’s basketball used two key runs and strong half-court defense to grind out a 73-60 win over Utah on Saturday for its sixth conference win of the year.
ASU (15-14, 6-10 Big 12) had a 13-point lead with 16 minutes left, tied for its largest to the game at that point, when Utah (10-19, 2-14) started to chip away and eventually rattled off four unanswered buckets to pull within four.
Pig Johnson snapped the Sun Devils out of the four-minute funk with a 3-pointer, and his steal on the other end led to a 3 from Bryce Ford to stretch the lead back out to double-digits.
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Utah again whittled it down to two possessions at a six-point ASU lead with seven minutes left, but the Sun Devils scored nine straight — including two dunks by Massamba Diop, who also had two blocks in the stretch — for their largest lead of the game at 68-53 with 3:52 remaining.
Diop put an exclamation point on the game with a 3 on ASU’s final possession to get to 6 of 16 on the season from deep. He was one of four Sun Devils to finish with at least a dozen points, joining Johnson, Moe Odum and Santiago Trouet.
Noah Meeusen exited the game and headed straight for the locker room after taking an elbow from Utah’s Terrence Brown in his eye area during a stretch of six straight ASU points. He left with 9:54 remaining and did not return.
ASU takes control in 1st half behind stout defense
Diop’s fifth made 3 of the season was one of two made field goals for ASU during a sluggish start for both sides that had Utah up 7-5 after the first four minutes.
Utah then had a seven-point burst to make it 14-5 before ASU rattled off a 13-5 response to pull within one point. Utah got a bucket to make it 21-18 with 9:19 left, but that would be its last points for more than eight minutes.
ASU ratcheted up the defense, forcing the Utes into late-shot clock situations it doesn’t have the shot-making required to fight through. Odum, Johnson and Meeusen each had a steal during the half, with the latter two getting theirs during the shutdown.
Odum fueled a lot of the Sun Devils’ 16-3 run over nine minutes to end the half, including three 3s in the final five minutes. ASU shot 54.5% from distance in the half for a 34-24 lead.
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