WOLVES

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said. “We’ve been away from that over the last three games and I told them we have to get back to playing that way.”

Down 29-15 in the first half, the Red Wolves went on a 9-0 run that included two 3s from Farrington to pull within five points. The Cajuns pushed their lead back to 10 points in less than a minute and led 4330 at halftime.

Ford sank two 3s as ASU opened the second half on an 8-0 run to pull within 43-38. UL Lafayette scored the next seven points and kept its lead in double digits until Farrington hit a 3 with 15 seconds to play.

Balado said the Red Wolves need to stay confident.

“When you get into a losing streak like this, everyone starts questioning themselves – coaches, players, everybody. What you can’t do is you can’t continue to question yourself,” he said. “You have to stay confident to what you believe in, you have to continue to work hard and that’s all we can do. That’s all we can do to get them better and get back to the way we were playing at the end of December, because I thought we were playing some pretty good basketball. It’s been tough from that point.”

ASU closes a four-game home stand today at 2 p.m. against another of the Sun Belt’s best offensive teams.

Marshall (16-4, 5-2 Sun Belt) stands second among Sun Belt teams in scoring at 81.6 points per game, including a 77.9-point average in conference play.

The Thundering Herd won 81-73 Thursday at Texas State.

Taevion Kinsey, a 6-5 guard, leads the Sun Belt in scoring at 21.1 points per game. Kinsey has scored 2,357 points in four-plus seasons at Marshall.

“Two NBA players back to back, playing Thursday-Saturday. Jordan Brown is going to play in the league and Taevion Kinsey is going to play in the league for sure. He’s going to be a tough matchup,” Balado said. “We’re going to have to call out for different guys to help with him.

They’re a great 3-point shooting team and I think they’re top five in tempo, so they play extremely fast as well.”

Marshall’s Andrew Taylor is the Sun Belt’s third-leading scorer, averaging 18.9 points per game, and Kamdyn Curfman leads the league in 3-pointers with 68. While familiar with Marshall’s personnel, Balado said today’s game isn’t so much about scouting for the Red Wolves.

“Right now it’s about morale and making each other believe that we’re good enough to win the next game,” he said. “We just have to continue to do that.”