Amid early struggles in Pac-12 play, No. 21 Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley tinkered with his lineup during an 81-73 win over Cal last Saturday.

First and foremost, Hurley adjusted his starting lineup. Vitaliy Shibel returned to the starting five, a role he held during the season’s first 11 games – all wins – before being replaced by Ohio State transfer Mickey Mitchell on Dec. 22. Of the seven games Mitchell started however, ASU lost four.

Back in a bench role, Mitchell excelled against the Golden Bears with 12 points and 11 rebounds, his first double-double of the season. The switch provided Hurley with an impactful sub while also balancing his starting look with a true stretch-four in Shibel.

“Mickey has been so valuable and I thought back to his Vanderbilt game, he came off the bench and had 13 rebounds,” Hurley said during a Tuesday press conference. “I think Vitaliy had become accustomed to starting and I thought that he might play a little better in that role and I thought Mickey would produce coming off the bench.”

Even as a reserve, Mitchell met his season-average for playing time by logging 25 productive minutes.

“It’s just a gut decision of maneuvering the lineup,” Hurley explained. That’s not to say that this is the lineup that will stay consistent through the rest of the year. We are just playing this thing game to game.”

Shibel also took advantage of his increased role in the rotation, scoring 8 points and collecting 3 rebounds in 14 minutes of action, the most minutes he’s played in a conference game this year.

“He is a threat to make the shots from 3 and he plays off our guards very well,” Hurley said. “He’s in the right spot if the defense is helping in the paint.”

But the starting look wasn’t the only part of ASU's rotation to get a makeover from its third-year head coach. Throughout the Sun Devils win in Berkley, Hurley used new combinations to capture ASU’s second conference road win of the year.

In the frontcourt, Romello White and De’Quon Lake played together for stretches, a tactic not seen since the season’s non-conference days.

“I think I got away from that some and I’d like to have that combination out there, particularly when we’ve generated a lead and we need to take care of the backboard,” Hurley said. “…Having two guys like that, that can challenge shots and rebound, that’s how you get stops. I would anticipate seeing those guys together some as we go forward.”

“I think interior defense-wise, they would help each other more and be less likely to get in foul trouble if they were together just because of Romello’s physicality and Lake’s athleticism,” Hurley added.

Their shared inclusion helped the Sun Devils outrebound Cal 39-30.

“I thought we had a little more size out there and there was more focus on blocking out and things that we talked about after the Stanford game,” Hurley said. “(Against Stanford) we gave up way too many second-chance points, especially in the second half. I was just all over the guys about rebounding and the importance of that.”

Freshman forward Kimani Lawrence also provided some key contributions off the bench, scoring a career-high 7 points in his sixth game back from a preseason foot injury.

“He’s got such a bright future here, he is going to continue to develop and make an impact,” Hurley said. “I was happy with his first-half minutes and how he played, came right in and contributed. That’s going to be his role in the short term and then we will see how everything progresses.”

Nonetheless, freshman guard Remy Martin was again ASU’s most explosive option off the bench after logging a team-high 13 points and draining some crucial buckets down the stretch, including a late 3-pointer that pushed ASU’s lead to 11 points with less than 5 minutes to play.

“Remy is one of those guys that thinks he is the best player on the court regardless of who’s out there,” Hurley said. “…But he is very team oriented so it’s not in a negative way where he thinks it’s about him. He’s just trying to make all the plays he can make to win. It’s very unselfish how he picks up the basketball in our defense and gets that whole thing started.”

The former Rivals150 recruit is fifth on the team in scoring (10.2 ppg) and third in assists (2.7 apg), a stat line that makes it hard for Hurley to leave him on the bench for any extended stretch.

“Just trying to find minutes for Remy to get him out on the floor,” Hurley said.

ASU hoping more home games means more trips to the line

With an undersized lineup last season, the Sun Devils trips to the free throw line were few and far between, as ASU ranked No. 201 in the country in foul shot attempts.

Different story this winter, as the Sun Devils, rank No. 4 in that category. No Division I team has made more free throws than ASU either.

“Whether it’s a hand check or a rotating defense that is out of position, us being able to take advantage of that (is how we get to the line),” Hurley said. “The drop-off passes or the kick outs and we’re driving again, all the different ways primarily the guards can attack and then also going inside to Romello.”

However, the Sun Devils have been to the charity stripe less often in Pac-12 play, attempting less than 24 foul shots per game in the conference after averaging nearly 30 tries from the line in the season’s first 12 games.

A possible factor: ASU has played five of its seven Pac-12 games on the road, after playing just one true away contest in its dozen non-conference games earlier this season.

“That’s always something that you know you have to be a little bit better on the road than normal just because the crowd and you may not feel you get the same calls you get on your home court,” Hurley said. “That’s just what coaches feel everywhere.”

Since shooting a season-high 16 free throws at Arizona on Dec. 30, Holder has seen his trips to the line slashed since. In the last six games, the senior guard has averaged just 4.3 free throws per game.

His thoughts on how the increased amount of away games has impacted ASU’s free throw numbers: “I try not to get into it too much. We’ll see what happens, I don’t want to criticize officials. They have a tough job. Lots of fans, coaches, players. Whatever they call, you got to play through it and not let it affect the game.”

Thanks to the imbalanced Pac-12 schedule, ASU will be staying home a lot over the final six weeks of the season. In its final 11 games, seven will be at Wells Fargo Arena where the Sun Devils average nearly 30 free throw attempts per game (they average about 22 free throw tries in road games).

Sun Devils see turnaround coming ahead of home weekend

Knocked off balance by a challenging conference slate, ASU can see a return to form on the horizon after winning two of its last three games.

“I think we were on to something in the Cal game,” Hurley said. “Not only the rebounding was better and the defense, but just our ball movement and the extra passes and the drive and kicks. Things we were doing offensively early in the season that we maybe didn’t do quite as well early in Pac-12 play.”

Hurley urged his team to play with a “target on the back” mentality after its rise to No. 3 in the country. But Pac-12 opponents have adjusted better to ASU’s newfound explosiveness this season better than its non-conference foes could.

“These coaches are pretty good in the conference and they’ve seen our players with more frequency than non-conference opponents,” Hurley said. “We’ve run a lot of things on offense we didn’t do last year.”

Holder pointed out that the abundance of film is a two-way street, however. Ahead of ASU’s first rematch of the season against Utah on Thursday, the team’s leading scorer has buried himself in video watching trying to identify the Utes’ weaknesses.

“Now we got more film on them to see how they play. We looked at the open shots we got and how they defended us,” Holder said. “I’m going to watch film to see where I can improve, stuff like that. Playing them again is always an advantage.”

Holder said he watched a combination of footage from ASU’s visit to Utah earlier this month in addition to Utah’s other conference games but admitted the latter was of little use.

“I watched them play Washington State, but they played man against Washington State. I know they aren’t going to play man against us,” he laughed. “I felt like I did well in the second half despite not playing well in the first half in our first game in Salt Lake City.”

Hurley’s took a softer stance on the importance of rematch games.

“I don’t look at it like, ‘Hey we (already) played them,’” he said. “I think each game is really its own and I’m just concentrating on where my team is at right now and what we just did at Cal and how we can build on that this week.”

Hurley’s best description of ASU’s Jan. 7 win at Utah: “It was the longest game in the history of college basketball.”

Hurley might have only been half-joking after enduring the 50-foul game.

“(Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak) does a great job and they are a team that has a good inside game,” Hurley added.

A key to Thursday’s game will be ball security, a phase that Holder has focused on since being plagued with turnover problems early in the season. Through the first 14 games this year, he averaged 3 turnovers per game. Lately, he has given the ball away just 1.2 times per night in ASU's last six games.

“First couple games of the conference I was turning the ball over a lot. It was kinda getting in my mind,” he said. “But, I just stayed with it. I didn’t really let it bother me toward the end as we kept playing and kept being confident. When we play hard and don’t focus on negative things, it just happens.”

Of course, Holder’s biggest focus on Tuesday was on the fact that ASU will play seven of its final 11 games of the regular season back at home.

“Everyone is more confident at home. I’m leaning on that,” he said. “We just got to take it one game at a time. Five of the (first) seven have been on the road, not to make excuses but when we play at home, we are 9-1. I like those odds.”