TEMPE, Az. – The Western Illinois men's basketball team dropped its season opener to Arizona State by an 87-35 score, Friday, Nov. 13.
The Fighting Leathernecks (0-1) stuck with the Sun Devils (1-0) for the first three minutes of the game, but a 9-0 run put Arizona State up 15-2 with 15 minutes to go in the first half, and Western would never challenge the rest of the way.
"I think these kinds of losses can be the best teaching examples," Western Illinois head coach Jim Molinari said. "I've been preaching to our guys every day about just how hard it is to play at this level. I'm in no way discouraged by what happened today, Arizona State is a very good team and it was a good learning experience for us."
Western's offense was stifled all night by a lockdown defensive effort from the Sun Devils. The Leathernecks shot just 12-for-52 (23.1%) from the floor on the night but were a respectable 4-for-11 (36.4%) from beyond the arc.
"We were a little anxious in the first half," Molinari said. "We had a much better second half after everyone calmed down a little bit. I think maybe we tried too many different combinations of guys tonight, we need to get set in to a more regular rotation."
Arizona State finished the night shooting 28-for-50 (56.0%) from the floor including 8-for-16 (50.0%) from long range and 23-for-28 (82.1%) from the free-throw line.
"If there's one thing I look at from this game that sort of disappointed me it was our defense," Molinari said. "We need to have a more consistent defensive effort all around and need to limit fast break points better."
Junior guard Matt Lander, filling in for the injured Ceola Clark, led all scorers with 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting, including a perfect 2-for-2 from three-point range in his first regular-season game with the Leathernecks.
"I thought Matt played really well tonight," Molinari said. "Obviously we need Ceola to come back but we're finding the pieces to the puzzle right now and Ceola's injury isn't anything serious so he'll be back soon."
Jeremy Felton chipped in with seven points for Western. David Nurse scored six points while David Gebru and Abdou Niang each notched four points.
Arizona State had four players score in double-digits, including 12 each from Jamelle McMillan and Demetrius Walker.
"We just didn't match up really well individually tonight," Molinari said. "We didn't quite have anyone big enough or agile enough to deal with their post players and that hurt us."
"Ultimately I believe we're going to be very competitive this season. We have a good mix of young guys and some older guys who have really taken on big leadership roles for us this season."
Western Illinois finishes its road trip at Kansas State at 3 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 15 before returning home for it's home opener against Truman State at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 18
