Hurley speaks of new 2020 signees: Christopher, Muhammed and Woods
Exhale. Just under a month after all three announced they’d further their basketball career in Tempe, Josh Christopher, Luther Muhammed and Holland Woods officially signed with Arizona State on Wednesday.
The biggest fish of the bunch was Christopher. Despite the fact his brother, Caleb, just finished up his freshman season with the Sun Devils and he attended nearly a dozen games at Desert Financial Arena, there was always skepticism around his decision.
He was the No. 11 player in the country. He’s Instagram famous with more than 700,000 followers. He expects to be a one-and-done player. He’s not the type of recruit to choose Arizona State. He’s the type who, historically, doesn’t give the Sun Devils the time of day. Christopher bucked the trend, tying James Harden as the Sun Devils highest-ranked signee.
And what are the Sun Devils getting? An ultra-athletic scorer with innate playmaking ability who automatically elevates ASU to a preseason top-25 team. At Mayfair High in Southern California, Christopher averaged 29 points, 11 rebounds and four assists a game and earned myriad accolades including a McDonald’s All-American selection.
“Maybe the only guy who I’ve coached that approaches (Christopher’s level of physicality) is Lu Dort,” Hurley said. “He’s got great ability to finish at all levels, especially around the basket … I think one of his underrated skills is that he’s a really good teammate. He’s unselfish. He will pass the ball. He enjoys passing the basketball.
“And that’s going to be a challenge because we have so many guys that can make plays. We’re going to have to convince everyone to coexist well and share the ball.”
Luther Muhammed was once a four-star prospect out of high school. In 2018, the Jersey City, New Jersey native decided on Ohio State. Two years later, the 6-foot-3, 185-pound guard chose to continue his basketball career at ASU over, namely, West Virginia, UCLA, and Seton Hall.
On Wednesday, Hurley said that Muhammed will have to sit out next season -- he’ll have two years of eligibility after that -- following the path that Zylan Cheatham and Rob Edwards set: integrating themselves as fierce practice players before seeing the court. And, Muhammed has some improving to do. In two seasons in Columbus, Muhammed only averaged seven points, two rebounds, and an assist despite playing 25 minutes a night.
“Luther Muhammed is a guy we've known about, a Jersey guy who's had a really good career at Ohio State. Made an impact, particularly as a defender,” Hurley said. “I think in the year that he’ll redshirt and sit out, he’s going to get after it and work in our player development to be ready to be an impact player when he’s eligible. It’s a formula that we’ve had in the past.”
For his final season of college basketball, Holland Woods is returning home. The Phoenix native who was lightly recruited out of Apollo High, despite putting up 27 points a game. In a short time at Portland State, Woods showed his output at Apollo was no fluke.
After not being recruited by ASU out of high school, the 6-foot-1, 180-pound guard heads to Tempe after a stint as one of the most lethal scorers in the Big Sky Conference. Last season, Woods notched nearly 18 points, five assists, two steals a game and, foreign words to ASU fans shot almost 85 percent from the free-throw line.
Though he hasn’t graduated, Hurley said he’s spoken to Woods about trying to receive a waiver, which would add his versatility alongside Christopher’s next season.
“The experience of a guy like Holland Woods, who now has a chance to come back to the area and has had a very, very good career,” Hurley said. “He’s a guy who has produced at a very high level and he fits to a ‘T’ what I look for in a point guard.”
The fourth addition to the ASU 2020-21 roster, five-star forward Marcus Bagley signed with ASU in the early November period. The Sun Devils' 2020 recruiting class is currently ranked no. 17.
Arizona State has two scholarship slots it could fill and is expected to add at least one frontcourt player between now and the beginning of the season.
