Even though we are still in the midst of the offseason, there has been no shortage of news regarding the Arizona State men’s basketball team.

Head coach Bobby Hurley held a press conference Tuesday to discuss everything from the team’s full non-conference schedule released that day, a new assistant coach hired to the staff, former players Luguentz Dort and Zylan Cheatham signing NBA contracts and much more.

Of course, the Sun Devils have already begun summer workouts, and although it’s early, Hurley has positive impressions of the team thus far.

“We really have just gotten the guys back, we haven’t done enough workouts yet for me really to know what we’re going to be at this point,” Hurley said. “But some talented guys for sure, guys that are working hard and have a good attitude, really enthusiastic about being here, so we’ve kicked the summer off to a pretty good start.”

There’s been a decent amount of roster turnover, as about one-third of the team will look different from a season ago.

This roster shift will be noticeable almost exclusively in the front court, as Cheatham and 6-foot- 10 big man De’Quon Lake graduated, while Vitaliy Shibel and Uros Plavsic transferred to UNLV and Tennessee, respectively.

Dort joins Cheatham in the NBA, as both players will have the opportunity to prove that they belong at the highest level of competitive basketball.

Both of ASU’s potential NBA draftees in Cheatham and Dort attended the event last Thursday in New York, hoping to experience the dream of hearing your name called by the commissioner.

Instead, neither was selected in the 60-pick draft, which resulted in both players signing two-way contracts shortly after it ended- Cheatham with the New Orleans Pelicans and Dort with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The fact that neither player was drafted surprised most Sun Devil fans, particularly in Dort’s case as he was projected by most insiders to be anywhere from a late first to mid second round pick.

But Hurley suggested there was more to the story in Dort’s scenario.

“In the moment it wasn’t easy for those guys, I think more so maybe Lu just because of where he was projected to go,” Hurley said. “But there were reasons behind the scenes as to why he wasn’t drafted at all. There were plenty of opportunities, just wasn’t the right opportunity.”

Both players signed two-way contracts with their respective clubs, one-year deals that allow them to play in the G-league and spend a maximum of 45 days with the NBA club during the season.

“To my understanding, there were a couple teams that were going to draft Lu under certain criteria, things they wanted, and his representation did not feel comfortable with that and they told them ‘might want to go in a different direction,’” Hurley said. “So, it did work out very well for Lu to be in a two-way situation, a one-year deal so he’s able to control his own destiny a little more. Same thing with Zylan.”

Cheatham joins a Pelicans roster that has no one over age 23 under contract in the front court, giving him a prime opportunity to find his way into the rotation.

On the other hand, Dort will have the opportunity to learn from veterans in former MVP Russell Westbrook and Andre Roberson, two guards that once played in the Pac-12.

The Sun Devils released their entire non-conference schedule yesterday, which includes trips to China and the northeast in the first month of the season, while they’ll be home for all of December after a road game against San Francisco on the 3rd.

It’s another rigorous first couple months, which is exactly what Hurley wants for his team. “Just want them playing in games that they can get excited about playing, and our fans are excited to see,” Hurley said. “If you take care of business and you win those games, then you’re viewed as a potential NCAA tournament team, so that’s kind of the whole way we’re trying to do our whole philosophy.”

He further emphasized the value that playing competitive non-conference opponents has in helping the team find its identity and learn from mistakes early on.

“There are lessons that you learn through those games,” Hurley said. “Sometimes you get exposed, you see who’s ready to play in those big games, who wants that moment. So, you just learn a lot about your team and you can make the adjustments you need to make.”

Overall, he acknowledged the ups and downs of the schedule’s structure, allowing them to spend most of December at home in the wake of traveling practically halfway around the world in the first month of the season.

“It wasn’t in the most ideal sense to go to China and then go all the way to Connecticut, and then bounce around in Jersey. So, we’re going to be on the road a lot more than we did last year or the year before,” Hurley said. “

We’ll figure that out, and the positive is that we don’t have any road games in December, so we’ll be able to really start to get better as a team and not have to travel and then get ready for Pac-12.”

After assistant coach Anthony Coleman departed the program for Colorado, the Sun Devils were left with a pair of vacancies on their coaching staff.

One was filled on June 5, when ASU hired former UNLV assistant Eric Brown to join Hurley and associate head coach Rashon Burno.

“Even though I’ve been out here now, this’ll be my fifth year and coach Burno the same, it’s nice to have a guy on staff that has connections in the west coast,” Hurley said. “He just came really highly regarded, a lot of good people that I respect reached out on his behalf.”

Brown last coached in the Pac-12 as an assistant at USC in 2005, and has since coached a season at Iowa State, 12 at Long Beach State, and three at UNLV in similar roles.

As for the fourth coaching spot, Hurley is content in taking his time to find someone who fits the bill.

“Everyday we’re getting closer,” Hurley said. “But again, there’s no real rush on my end. Coach Burno and I do so much of the work on the floor and in workouts anyway, I’m not the type of head coach that has a coffee on the sideline and lets his assistants do all the work on the floor, and we’ve managed in the recruiting cycle too, being two guys under and still doing a good job of finishing out the roster for this year.”

He also brought up getting to talk to former Nebraska head coach Tim Miles in the candidate search.

Miles was fired on March 26, but was named Big Ten coach of the year in 2014 for leading the Cornhuskers to their first NCAA tournament since 1998, and led them to a program-high 13 conference wins in 2017-18.

“It was great for me just to learn some things about how he ran his program at Nebraska, he’s just very detail-oriented, very analytic-oriented,” Hurley said. “He was willing to come in and just let us at least talk to him, so that was a great opportunity, most likely I imagine he’ll do TV this year, he’s a good charismatic guy and fun guy to be around.”

Hurley himself was signed to a contract extension through June 2024, which was officially approved by the Arizona Board of Regents a few weeks ago.

He commented on the conversation he had with university president Michael Crow and athletic director Ray Anderson that led to the revised deal.

“It was amazing just how much president Crow knew about our program and how closely he followed it,” Hurley said. “He always watched, and had some tremendous observations, just as the great leader that he is, just about things that he saw from me- good and some that made me look at ways that I can keep getting better as a coach.”

“So, it’s tremendous to get that type of feedback, and they immediately made it known to me that they wanted to get me here for the maximum amount of years so that I continue to build off what we’ve been able to do the last two seasons.”

The 2019 recruiting class includes six players that will call Tempe home starting this season, up two players from ASU’s 2018 class.

Hurley went through which players have impressed thus far and why.

“I think Alonzo Verge has already stood out for me, just with his creativity and making guys better on the floor,” Hurley said, “and then Jalen House, another guy that’s always excited, enthusiastic and communicating.”

Verge and House are both four-star guards, with Verge coming from Villa Park, Illinois, and House a local product out of Shadow Mountain in Phoenix. The latter is the son of former Sun Devil and NBA player Eddie House.

“Khalid Thomas has shown some nice things already, really six-nine, he can shoot, very good athlete,” Hurley said. “Andre Allen has been working hard…Jalen Graham is a guy that I think has shown good footwork and he’s battling inside, for an incoming freshman he looks pretty good.”

Allen is a three-star forward out of Los Angeles, while Graham is a three-star out of local Mountain Pointe.

Thomas chose ASU over Oregon less than a month ago as a four-star, JUCO transfer from the College of Southern Idaho.

In addition to the new recruits, Hurley expressed his belief that White, Lawrence and Cherry are all frontcourt players that could step into bigger roles this season following the mass of departures from the frontcourt.

He keyed in on Cherry as someone that has locked in thus far in the offseason.

“Maybe the influence that Zylan had on him the whole year, and seeing what happened with Lu going through the draft process, as a guy that was as highly rated as Taeshon it could be a bit of a wake-up call, like I got to get it going here,” Hurley said.

“I just noticed more maturity about him in workouts, him controlling his emotions a little better, and just his focus and how he was training. I think he knows that with Zylan graduating and going on that there’s an opening there for him there to step in and be an impact player.”

Furthermore, Hurley mentioned that Lawrence made some offseason gains that could make him more versatile in the Sun Devil rotation.

“He physically looks really good, he got stronger, probably put on 10 pounds since the season ended…I think he’s ready to make a move and take a step this year,” Hurley said. “I think I’ll have some more versatility with him, maybe two through four with him at times. Those will be his positions with us with certain lineups on the floor.”

But perhaps just as much as Cherry and Lawrence, Hurley sees an opportunity for White to also step into a larger role in his third season with the program.

“Romello is a guy that’s not talked about a ton, or may have got lost in the shuffle or something last year,” Hurley said. “I think he can make some improvements in his game in the next several months. He’s in far better shape than he was last year at this time, he’s done a better job with his training, and I think he can take another step and and kind of cushion the blow of losing Zylan in the frontcourt by just getting better.”