While Arizona State's 2024-25 season has not ended yet, as the Sun Devils will play in the Las Vegas Crown Tournament against Nebraska on Monday evening, the roster rebuild for next season is already in full swing.
Over the last few days, ASU has made two notable roster additions. 6-foot-8 forward Cal State-Northridge Marcus Adams Jr. and 6-foot-1 Pepperdine point guard Moe Odum have both committed to the Sun Devils and will arrive in Tempe in the summer.
Adams averaged 16.1 points and 4.9 rebounds this past season and earned second-team All-Big West honors. He was instrumental in the Matadors' 22-11 season, where he shot 52.6% from the field and 39.5% from 3-point range, and scored 20 points in 11 of Cal State-Northridge’s games this past season. Adams fielded interest from USC, DePaul, Texas A&M, and Missouri when he entered the portal and has two years of eligibility.
The forward was a four-star prospect out of Narbonne (Calif.) Harbor City High School was a Top-65 prospect in the 2023 class and a Top-20 power forward in that group. He signed with Kansas but left the Jayhawks after a month with the program. Later, in 2023, he did commit to Gonzaga but decided not to sign with the Bulldogs. He ultimately joined BYU and medically redshirted after playing one game and suffering a foot injury. While he was planning to suit up for the Cougars in the 2024-25 campaign, he did transfer closer to his Southern California home due to the passing of his father.
“I really liked the energy and the enthusiasm the coaches showed when I came on the visit,” said Adams, who did pledge to ASU while still in Tempe. “I really liked the city around it and I obviously liked the conference they are in. It’s big competition, very physical and just the highest of the high. I was looking for a program that was right for me, and Arizona State was a perfect fit.
“Coach Hurley and Coach Irvin (asst coach Nick Irvin) recruited me. They all have great experience, which is very important. I like what they do with their strength and conditioning, the way they train their players, and their player development. That is very important. They said that I could bring good shooting to the team. I can bring switch mismatches if I have a big one on me because I’m faster than a lot of bigs. I can go post; I can bring rebounding and three-level scoring to the team. I like their style of play because the coaches let the players go and run a whole bunch of sets for individual players, and everybody gets open. I know they picked up a guard, Moe Odum, and he's a very assist-first, pass-first guard, and he's going to fit right into the system, too.”
Following a turbulent college basketball career with multiple short stops, Adams feels like this previous season at Cal-State Northridge truly showcased his skills. However, he certainly still has the chip on his shoulder and is eager to assert himself at one of the best conferences in the country.
“At Kansas, I felt that it wasn’t a good fit between me and the players, so O left,” Adams explained, “and after I visited Gonzaga, I felt that it wasn’t going to be a good situation for me. I was injured that whole year at BYU and had to redshirt. The next year, my dad passed away, so I transferred because I needed to be closer to home with my family and take care of them. It was a tough year, and I went through a lot of adversity, but I pulled through and had a good season, and I took Northridge to a winning season. We did great things, I put up good numbers, and I felt like it's my time to go back to the high major.
“It didn’t matter to me if I went to a school on the West Coast or East Coast, but luckily, Arizona State is right next to California and super close for my family to travel. The city of Tempe and Phoenix are kind of like Los Angeles. There are a lot of students and active life at Arizona State. It's lively, and that's what I was looking for.
“I've got a lot to prove. I proved it at a mid-major level, and now, I've got to prove it at a high-major level to make a lot of people know what's going on. I was a high-major player recruited by most of the top schools in the country. Because I went through a little bit of injury and adversity everybody who thinks that I'm not a good player, I've got to bring that back to everybody. Coach Hurley and the staff are going to help me do that, and I want to win over here.”
Prior to the weekend, ASU was successful in lancing another player from a Southern California program, as 6-foot-1 Pepperdine point guard Moe Odum who this past season, after transferring from Pacific (where he was named to the WCC All-Freshman Team) averaged 13.1 points and 7.5 assists, the latter ranked second in the West Coast Conference and fourth in the nation at the end of the regular season. He also had a free throw percentage of 79.3 and shooting 37.9 percent from 3-point. The Bronx, New York native who prepped at West Oaks Academy (Fla.) will have one year of eligibility remaining.
“Knowing about Coach Hurley and where he come from and him being a Northeast root guard like me made me want to go there,” Odum said. “He won two national championships playing the same position I do, and that was a big factor because he knows the ins and outs of being a winner. (Assistant) Coach Yusuf Ali was recruiting me and I just loved everything about him. Once he first hit me, everything was genuine. He was on me as soon as I entered the portal and also reached out to my dad.
“The coaches think I can bring leadership, be that alpha male, and that extra coach on the floor. I’m a guy who can lead an offense whether I'm assisting, scoring, or just getting guys in the right spot. I’m fast, shifty, and feisty. I like their style because it's a lot of open space, and their offense is a lot of high pick-and-roll, down screens that gives me a lot of space to create. Once I got out there on the visit, it was all love. Being in that environment where basketball is a priority and everyone wants basketball to win made me want to commit. I want to come in here and get us to the NCAA Tournament.”
The additions of Adams and Odum are respectively replacing outgoing seniors power forward Basheer Jihad ASU's third leading scorer for ASU at 12.5 ppg and point guard Alston Mason the Sun Devils’ second leading scorer at 13.5 ppg. Freshman guard Joson Sanon is the only portal departure to date for Arizona State, who currently is set to return a good nucleus of players headed by freshman forward and five-state prospect Jayden Quaintance who missed the last handful games of the year due to knee injury, fellow freshman forward Amier Ali who surged toward the end of the season, Junior center Shawn Phillips who played well in Quaintance’s absence, junior guard Austin Nunez who played in four games before being sidelined with an Achilles injury and freshman Trevor Best who arrived mid-year in Tempe.
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