Joson Sanon leads ASU basketball to victory over Saint Mary’s

NBA draft experts may be rethinking their preseason boards as Joson Sanon looked like a first-round pick in ASU men’s basketball’s 68-64 win over Saint Mary’s on Friday.

The Gaels earned a commanding 71-36 win over USC in their first game of the Acrisure Classic and kept the pressure on in the Palm Springs Tournament championship game to lead by nine midway through the first half.

However, like so many times this season, Sanon and Jayden Quaintance had the answer, going on a 10-3 run to end the half and get within two points at halftime.

Sanon then hit back-to-back three-pointers at the end of a period that began the second half in which ASU allowed just one Saint Mary’s field goal through nearly 7:30 of game time. He scored a team-high 19 points on 8-for-16 shooting.

The freshman guard is starting to look like a Freshman of the Year candidate in a crowded Big 12, and it’s time for the ASU offense to reflect that. In the first seven games of this season, there were times when he was third, sixth and second on the team in shot attempts.

As long as he’s shooting the ball as well as he has been (50% on 4.9 3s per game since Friday), his shots need to be a top priority. It shouldn’t take much to create this look either, as he’s proven he can shoot well even in adverse conditions without moving or with a defender directly in front of him.

When it was late and ASU (7-1) needed a basket, it was Quaintance who offset a Sanon miss at the rim with a one-and-one putback. When Saint Mary’s (7-1) failed at the other end, it was Quaintance who fended off every move from the Gaels.

The 17-year-old’s all-round performances, including a game-high five assists, were good enough to earn rare grades.

Saint Mary’s guard Jordan Ross led the Gaels with 19 points and four assists. The former AZ Compass Prep guard scored the first basket of the game and almost equaled his career high from the previous evening (15 points) in the first half (14).

The win snapped a streak of at least 80 points in six games for the Sun Devils, but 68 points against Saint Mary’s is nothing to sneeze at considering USC was at 36 points a day earlier.

ASU will be at home one final time in its non-conference schedule in San Diego on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. MST.

Neutral-site games with No. 18 Florida (December 14) and UMass (December 21) are the only remaining non-conference games. ASU then hints at the Big 12 game on New Year’s Eve at BYU, coached by former Phoenix Suns assistant Kevin Young.