Jordan Hamm
As Arizona State men’s basketball was prepping for their 2018-19 season, a follow-up to Bobby Hurley’s most successful season with the Sun Devils, “95%” posters were all over the Weatherup gym.
Seems like that number is, at minimum, 5% short. What happened to “giving 110%?”
Let Bobby Hurley explain:
“It’s something we talk about with our program,” Hurley said in the preseason. “(Assistant coach Rashon Burno) is great with coming up with different ideas, ways to get through to players. As it turns out, for the most part, unless you’re a point guard that dribbles a lot, you’re probably not going to have the ball for roughly 95% of the game. So what else are you doing to impact the game and impact winning outside of that 5% where you may have the basketball? A lot goes into that and we try to emphasized those things and value those things in the program.”
A few games in for the Sun Devils, and tha emphasis is evident.
The 3-0 Sun Devils are coming off a win against Long Beach State where they notched 63 rebounds, most in a regulation game in team history since 1996-97. In that same game, ASU held LBSU to 16 first-half points, the lowest since 2014. Thanks partially to that strong performance, the Sun Devils lead the nation in rebounds per game with 54.7 per contest. Last year, the Sun Devils were last in the conference in rebounds per game.
Defensively, they overcame a tough Cal State Fullerton, a tournament team in 2017, in the season-opening double-overtime win. Since that game, they have held LBSU and McNeese State to under 60 points each. ASU is also 31st in the nation in shooting percentage defense.
They’ll need to continue that as they navigate a tough non-conference schedule against Mississippi State Monday night, as well as Nevada, Vanderbilt, Kansas and Princeton.
But the 95% the Sun Devils have focused on have made them especially effective in that other 5%.
