Blue Devils overmatched by Sun Devils in Tempe

The Arizona State (1-1) men’s basketball team did not disappoint in its home opener, handily defeating the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils (0-3) by a score of 90-49 in the team’s first game this season on American soil.

CCSU would score the first points of the game in the first minute of the contest, but that would their only lead all night, as the Sun Devils responded with an 11-0 run and hardly looked back the rest of the night.

“I think we’re a bit of a work in progress, that would be my best call here after tonight,” coach Bobby Hurley said. “Some bright spots, some things to be pleased about, and some others that we got to just improve and get better.”

That early run featured two dunks, one by junior point guard Remy Martin to start it and another by freshman forward Jalen Graham to cap it off.

But the most impressive part of ASU’s early scoring run was their balance, as the Sun Devils had five players between two and four points scored by the time they had a 13-5 lead with 11:31 left in the first half.

This would go on to be a theme of ASU’s performance, as would be their shear athletic dominance over the floundering mid-major that is CCSU. However, the Blue Devils wouldn’t go away easily, at least not at first.

The young squad representing New Britain, Connecticut, would claw back from a 21-7 first half deficit to pull as close as 26-19 with just over five minutes left in the first. That margin would be as close as they could get all night; the second time they would cut the margin to seven, this time with 5:25 left in the half.

Senior guard Rob Edwards wasn’t going to let that last though, as he responded 19 seconds later with one of his five first-half three-pointers, good for a game-high 15 points at the end of the half.

He’d go on to score a game-high 23 points on 6-for-13 shooting from the field, 5-for-9 from three and a perfect 6-for-6 on free throws.

“Rob, I am proud of him; I’m happy for him,” Hurley stated. “He’s worked extremely hard in the offseason, working on getting his back right. He feels great, he’s moving great, and he’s been terrific our first two games.

“His threes in the first half, I thought, were very important for us to build the lead that we built, and I liked him hitting that momentum three going into the half, which gave us a 20-point lead, a pretty comfortable margin.”

“Before I go into a game, obviously I’m thinking about making a bunch of shots,” Edwards said. “When I hit one, I usually just tell coach, ‘alright, I’m good,’ and then he’ll give me another one, and if I hit that then we can keep going.

“But if I miss, I’m not going to stop shooting, I’m going to always just shoot because most of the times teams are leaving me open, so I just let it fly, especially off a drive and kick, that’s a shot I got to take.”

His teammates would follow his lead, and the Sun Devils would go on to outscore the Blue Devils 14-4 in the final five minutes of the opening frame to lead 43-23 at the break.

“Right now, that we’re selfish,” CCSU coach Donyell Marshall said about their lesson from tonight’s performance. “We don’t play together. It was about themselves. It’s teams that play together, that look for each other, that talk on defense and help each other out are the ones that get the upsets. Teams that play selfish are the ones that get blown out like we did.”

Two of the most refreshing highlights for ASU fans in the first 20 minutes was the return of junior forward Romello White, and then later sophomore forward Taeshon Cherry after both were suspended for the season-opening 81-71 loss in China for violating team rules.

“That brought a lot of energy, that was like our spark that we needed,” Edwards said. “They both dominate at their positions. Taeshon’s a shot-maker, he hits shots and ‘Mello plays down low, but he’s just a beast down low…he does everything that we need, offense and defense, so we can’t ask for much more, we’re just happy to have them back.”

White got a block in the first minute after he subbed in at the 14:07 mark, while Cherry scored a layup just over a minute after he checked in for the first time at the 4:48 mark of the first half.

“I was really happy for them, honestly, when that happened,” freshman guard Jaelen House said. “They had to sit out our first game, so we want to get them going throughout this season.”

Something that was as impressive as any other aspect of ASU’s performance was how the team didn’t let up in the second half. In fact, the Sun Devils outscored CCSU by 21 in the second- compared to a 20-point margin in the first, led by both Martin and House, each scoring 12 points in the final 20 minutes.

It was Martin who scored the first five points of that run, or for either team for that matter, which spanned the first 2:30 of the second. After a Blue Devils bucket at 17:26 to get their first points of the period, both teams went on a scoring drought that lasted until the next CCSU bucket at the 14:36 mark, which at that point cut their deficit to 22.

The two sides traded buckets over the next minute or so, and that CCSU trailing margin at the 13:23 mark would be as close as they would get for the rest of the night. Blue Devils sophomore forward Karrington Wallace would then pick up a technical foul for something he said to an official, and then Martin would hit two free throws to cap off seven points scored through the first 6:38 of the frame.

Then, it became the Jaelen House show, at least for the minute after Martin was subbed out for 6’9’’ junior transfer forward Khalid Thomas after making those free throws.

House, whose dad Eddie is ASU’s career leader in points with 2,044, put on a show for his old man in the stands when he scored five points in a 15-second span shortly after that substitution, of course, the highlight run of his 14 points on the night.

As well as the freshman’s second-ever collegiate game went, with him also adding four rebounds, five assists and a game-high four steals on the night, he still wasn’t in the mood to share any details of his postgame conversation with Eddie.

“He just talked about the game,” Jaelen said of his pregame conversation with Eddie. “He always talks to me after the game…(he said) I played well I guess…I don’t know what to say, I don’t want to share our conversation.”

For the remainder of the contest, the Sun Devils were in cruise control, as they watched their 30-point lead with 10 minutes to play slowly but surely increase into the 40’s and get as high as 44, and eventually finish the game as 41-point victors.

Other notable performances came from freshman guard Alonzo Verge Jr., who scored 10 points, added two rebounds, a steal plus tied House with a game-high five assists. Fellow freshman in forward Jalen Graham added 10 points, four rebounds and three steals himself, while Martin finished with 14 points and White got 11 rebounds and three blocks in his return.

All in all, five Sun Devils finished in double figures, while CCSU’s leading scorer in freshman guard Greg Outlaw finished with nine.

ASU will return to action this Sunday at 4 p.m. when they host the Rider Broncos at Desert Financial Arena.