Frankie Collins hit a game-winner again. This time, it was in the first game of conference play as Arizona State came back from 12 down to win 76-73 in Palo Alto.
Arizona State was down by 10 with five minutes to play, but the Cardinal collapsed. They turned the ball over late, and Bobby Hurley’s press destroyed them. Frankie Collins finished with 12 points, three assists, and two steals. Maxime Raynaud led the Cardinal with 15 points and 15 rebounds. The Sun Devils never led in this game until that shot by Frankie Collins.
Kamari Lands, Alonzo Gaffney, and Adam Miller came up very clutch with late threes to get the Sun Devils in it. Lands and Gaffney each had 12 points, while Miller had 13. Brandon Angel scored 15 points for the Cardinal, while Jared Bynum and Kanaan Carlyle scored 12 each.
First Half
The first half looked good offensively early for the Sun Devils. Whenever Stanford went on a run, ASU answered back. Stanford took an early 16-7 lead, but three three-pointers from Lands and Miller tied the score at 22. It looked like this was going to be a back-and-forth game.
However, immediately after the score tied at 22, Stanford went on a 15-6 run to end the half thanks to seven points from Brandon Angel. Arizona State’s defense, as did the offense, collapsed at the end of the second half. Once again, we were at a standstill, and the Sun Devils just looked dead.
Stanford shot 41% from the field and 43% from three, with Angel finishing with nine points. Raynaud and Carlyle each had seven. Frankie Collins led Arizona State with eight points, and Kamari Lands had six. However, they only shot 35% from the field and 27% from three.
Second Half
The lead jumped to 12 early in the second half thanks to a Jared Bynum three-pointer with 15 minutes to go. However, Arizona State finally showed some life and brought the lead to 7 in the next minute. In the next four minutes, the lead never shrunk. It jumped to 11 at one point.
Arizona State had enough. Braelon Green, Kamari Lands, and Frankie Collins hit clutch buckets to bring the lead to three. But, once again, the defense let them down, as they allowed Stanford to go on a 9-2 run to take a 69-59 lead with 5:04 remaining.
What does Arizona State do? They go on a 9-0 run with five points from Adam Miller to bring the score to 69-68.
Brandon Angel made a layup to go up three, but finally, Alonzo Gaffney made the shot to tie it at 71. Back-to-back twos kept the score tied at 73. Then, with 31 seconds remaining, Frankie Collins hit that shot to give the Sun Devils their first lead of the game at 75-73. Stanford had fallen apart and couldn’t even get the ball down the court. On their final chance, Michael Jones had his three-point shot blocked, and Arizona State was victorious.
The Sun Devils shot 56% from the floor in the second half. They also shot 36% from three, which is good for them. Adam Miller had 10, and Lands, Gaffney, and Jamiya Neal had 7. Stanford actually shot better than ASU in the second half with 56% and 40% from three, but they had nine turnovers, which cost them by the end of the game. Raynaud had 8 points, Bynum had 7, and Angel had 6.
This is a major first win for ASU, as it starts their Pac-12 conference play strong and ends their three-game losing streak. It also could’ve been a season-ender if they lost this one.
Arizona State moves to 7-5 on the year and 1-0 in Pac-12 play. Stanford drops to 5-6 and 0-1 in Pac-12 play. The Sun Devils now head to Cal, while Stanford stays home to face #4 Arizona.
More must-reads: