If you were among the few hardcore citizens of the Lady Bulldog Nation who made the trip back to Duluth for last night’s second-round NCAA Tournament action, congratulations…Arizona State and Florida State really hooked it up and put on a great show for you. Easily one of the best games of the tournament’s opening weekend.

While those two teams reached this point by playing up-tempo, push-the-ball/run-the-court offense in their first-round games, last night’s contest was a bit of an old-school, early-90s SEC slobberknocker. It looked like we were going to be in the building until midnight as the officiating crew tried to crack down and call seemingly every little hand-check in the first half. Luckily, the zebras swallowed their whistles for much of the game’s closing minutes and allowed the Sun Devils and Seminoles to decide their own fates.

FSU looked to have the game under control, leading by six with about five minutes remaining and having a cold-shooting ASU team in foul trouble. Then the Sun Devils got hot from three-point land. Hot, as in, blazing, thermo-nuclear hot. ASU wound up shooting of 8-of-17 on threes…but they connected on four straight bombs from downtown to surge ahead of FSU deep in crunch time. From there, it was a matter of protecting the ball and making free throws. Arizona State did both of those things and they are on their way to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen and a date with the winner of tonight’s Minnesota/Texas A&M game.

Click here for the official (ASU) recap and a link to the stats and box score.