After the 56-point blowout loss to Duke in an exhibition match on Sunday, head coach Bobby Hurley is wiping the slate clean when it comes to his first five. Outside of freshman forward Jayden Quaintance, players will be spending the next few days ahead of the November 5th home contest versus Idaho State battling for the other four starting jobs in the next two days of practice, as the team practiced twice today.

Hurley also feels that outside of the four players he starts, the rest of the team should be fighting tooth and nail to get a chance to play in the game. It truly is a fresh start for the team, as Hurley will judge the players based on their next four practices to see who will get the nod to start in Tuesday’s season opener.

“I expect whoever does not hear their name to be enthusiastic if I choose to put them in the game because anytime you have a performance like that, no one has a job. Everybody has to earn everything. If you get one minute in the next game, it should be the best minute you play. I could give two sh*ts about the starting lineup right now.”

Duke held ASU to just 47 points on Sunday while forcing a majority of the field goal attempts along the perimeter. The Sun Devils were only able to get 14 points in the paint, with freshman center Khaman Maluach holding down the paint. Although he blocked just two shots on Sunday, he intimidated and altered a plethora of shots when the Sun Devils had the confidence to drive on him.

“They have good physicality, athleticism, positional size, interchangeability, all the things that make sense,” Hurley explained. “Even if there is a breakdown, they have the rim protector at the basket. I think they were very physical with us, and we didn’t really handle it very well. Any time you’re the team getting punched in the mouth, you’re not going to have a great chance.”

With Maluach roaming the paint, ASU players tried to get him out of the lane to allow players to drive in, but even then, it was difficult to penetrate with the Blue Devils’ stellar perimeter defense. Quaintance was the most successful player in his attempts to get to the basket, finishing with 11 points. His stat sheet doesn’t tell the whole story, as he had multiple opportunities down low and on the perimeter to add to his total that he couldn’t capitalize on.

“The center of the floor was pretty wide open as they were trying to deny passing lanes,” Hurley explained. “If teams choose to do that, those two guys will have a chance to make teams pay on a regular basis. Even though JQ (Quaintance) played hard, he missed a couple of threes and layups. He could be looking at an 18-20 point game if he made some of his layups.”

Hurley has this week to prepare for the season opener against the Bengals. He will use the film from Sunday’s game to show his players what mistakes were made and how to learn from them. The overall consensus is that they displayed an understanding of what happened and will try to bounce back on Tuesday.

“It’s hard to not respond,” Hurley recognized. “When you watch it on film, and you see the errors that were made, you can’t contest it. You either own the truth, or you’re just delusional. So, I think, for the most part, there were pretty good comments about accepting what happened. It felt like the group genuinely understood the mistakes that were made.”

Not only did the players understand the mistakes made, but a few of the players took responsibility for them. Redshirt senior forward Adam Miller, senior point guard BJ Freeman, and senior forward Bisheer Jihad all stepped up as veterans in the locker room and showed Hurley that they’re ready to move on from the loss and start on the right foot.

“There’s been some positive comments,” Hurley stated. “I think the things Basheer said, Adam said some of the right things, BJ owned some of the mistakes that were made, and there was a fair amount of accountability from those guys. I think we’re getting closer to the point of getting on the same page, and a game like that could galvanize you and what you’re doing, so we’ll see what we’re made of in these next few days.”

The Sun Devils joined the Big 12, arguably the best conference in college basketball this year, and also face many Power Four schools in their non-conference schedule. The top challenge before conference play is a road trip up to Spokane to play No. 6 Gonzaga. The Bulldogs are fresh off an NCAA tournament run to the Sweet 16 and have a reloaded roster primed for a deep run.

“It’s fitting that it’s Halloween because it’s scary,” Hurley joked. “When you see it that way and what’s in front of you, you’re in a little bit of the unknown because I saw a lot of things to be really excited about the season in the preseason. It’s going to come down to making the adjustments we need to make, learning what your strengths are, and playing to those strengths.”

Idaho State features seven new transfers on the team this year, headlined by Washington State transfer redshirt sophomore Dylan Darling. Hurley has seen his play during ASU’s time in the Pac-12, where the Sun Devils split the season series at a game apiece in the 2022-2023 season. Darling redshirted last year due to injury and will face a familiar foe in his first game as a part of the Bengals.

“They’re a very new team,” Hurley voiced. “Their point guard, Darling, was a guy that played at Washington State a couple of years ago, so I’m familiar with him. He’s a very feisty guard, but it’s hard to gauge them when they have a lot of new faces. We’ll be going in there a little blind not knowing a whole lot about them, but I certainly know about Darling with him playing against us before.”

While Hurley had a front-row seat to all the breakdowns the Sun Devils had on offense and defense, he is staying patient to have a gauge on the outlook of the season. The first handful of games will be very telling as to how many adjustments he’ll have to make over the course of the season.

“I’m still waiting for us to get a couple of games under our belt,” Hurley expressed. “Until then, it’s going to be more of ‘can we do what we do better than what our opponent is trying to do.’ Trying to just stop them is not going to be the path to victory; it’s going to be us internalizing our mistakes and errors and getting better from our last game.”

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