brought to you by the ASU WebDevil and the State Press

House only option in Sun Devils' offense

By Nick Piecoro

State Press

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Practically all night in Tuesday's 60-57 ASU loss to NC State, Eddie House was the only Sun Devil option on offense.

In their lowest scoring output since the 82-55 UA loss on Jan. 26, the Sun Devils shot 37 percent minus House.

"We couldn't get anybody else going," ASU coach Rob Evans said. "Awvee (wasn't) giving us much and we weren't getting a whole lot from some people. So we had to get the basketball to Eddie and try to ride him as far as we could ride him."

Forward Awvee Storey, unlike in Wednesday night's win over New Mexico State, was a no-show. He was in foul trouble all night and made only one field goal.

Tanner Shell, who again started in place of Shawn Redhage, missed all six shots he took. Donnell Knight turned it over six times, Tommy Smith three and Redhage four.

The evening did not start well for House, who missed six of his first nine shots. But as he did all season, when his offense did not first click, he turned to his defense to spur it.

Twice in a span of three minutes he stole passes in the NC State backcourt, getting easy baskets off of them, and after that, it seemed, he felt comfortable offensively.

"I baited them to throw some stupid passes and I think that kind of got me going," House said. "I needed to step up and help the team any way I could. We were kind of struggling."

He scored 21 first-half points, prompting NC State coach Herb Sendek to switch to a box-and-one, the norm for House against Pac-10 teams.

"They were running man-to-man and there wasn't anybody out there that could stop me," House said.

He took 20 first-half shots, but was limited to 10 in the second half.

Nick Piecoro can be reached by e-mail at nick.piecoro@asu.edu.