Following arguably the most heart-crushing loss in the recent history of Sun Devil basketball, star point guard Frankie Collins made it clear the importance of maturity if Arizona State wanted to return to the NCAA Tournament. Accruing four technical fouls in a game where a 15-point lead would get away from them against a sub-.500 conference opponent at home, ASU went into soul-searching mode, with limited time to find what they were looking for and a daunting task against an talented USC squad looming.

Entering Saturday at a measly 10-7 record, with limited head-turning wins on its resumé, the clock had begun ticking on a team that had a margin for error as small as Sparky’s mustache. With their backs against the wall and staring down the Trojan horse, the Sun Devils surprised the Southern Cal stallion with a blend of defensive intensity and all-around discipline as Arizona State (11-7, 5-2 Pac-12) got off the mat for an 82-67 win over USC (8-11, 2-6), in front a raucous season-high crowd of 13,743.

If, as head coach Bobby Hurley said, that ASU had played a winning game on Wednesday, they played a dominant contest on Saturday. Going up against an undermanned SC group without its two top scorers, the Sun Devils capitalized on the get-right opportunity with a nonstop defensive attack that would force an eye-popping 22 turnovers to shut down the opposing offense while compiling their fourth 80-point performance of the season to turn away a desperate Trojan team in front of a raucous home crowd.

“Little bit better spirits than the last time,” Hurley said sarcastically. “Just want to give a shoutout to our crowd, our students, second highest student attendance in school history (4,325) , really excited to have our players have the opportunity to play in that environment. Certainly the crowd helps so much especially when we were really trying to impose our will defensively and take advantage of our speed and our ability to defend full court. That was really the difference in the game, our ability to create pressure and turnovers.”

At the head of another defensive masterclass was none other than defensive menace Frankie Collins. Coming into this game in the top-ten nationally in steals and steal percentage, Collins got to work early and often against the Boogie Ellis-less USC offense, taking a remarkable six possessions away from their inexperienced ball-handlers in the first half alone while matched up against another high-profile player in Bronny James.

“He’s playing at an elite, all-conference level,” Hurley noted. “In terms of production of guys I’ve had in the past, like Tra Holder and Remy Martin, he is right in the mix in the impact he has. They’re different types of players, but in terms of having an impact on winning, his defense, the steals, the pass he threw to Gaffney, as the all-time assists leader, that was one that I was like, ‘Woah.’ He’s really stepped it up to another level. He has complete control of his game out there. He’s running our team and making winning plays out there. When he plays that way, leads the way he’s doing, and playing both ends of the floor, it’s contagious.”

“It’s just the guy he is and the IQ he has for basketball,” Jamiya Neal added. “He knows when to steal the ball and thats why he is so good at it.”

Also missing star scorer Isaiah Collier, Collins’s work on the perimeter made life hell for Kobe Johnson and DJ Rodman, as the Trojans’ secondary scoring duo was held to just 21 points, including a combined 3-12 total from three-point land.

“Unfortunately for USC, not having Collier and not having Boogie Ellis, you have to try and take advantage of that,” Hurley noted. “That was important that guys really understood that.”

“I think we took what USC was giving to us, and they were sloppy with the ball,” Neal continued. “They don’t have a lot of ball handlers, unfortunately, because of injuries and that type of stuff. We have to use that to our advantage.”

Chomping at the bit to rid themselves of the memory of Wednesday, ASU came out of the gates hot, totaling 20 points in the first 10 minutes off the backs of on-ball pressure turning into scoring chances that Neal and Jose Perez would jump at. Even with the disruption of the Trojans offensive sets, USC shot right with the Sun Devils to take the lead halfway through the front 20, increasing it as high as eight in the first half as ASU’s hot start fizzled out.

Despite being down, an energized crowd helped keep the full-court press engaged, and the Sun Devils made this taxing defensive tactic look like a walk in the park for well over half of the game. Its deployment at this stage of the game helped spark a fiery 20-5 ASU run to close the half that featured plenty of turnovers and crowd-popping shots, but the most unheralded part of it all would be the rebounding work of Bryant Selebangue.

Having struggled to find his footing through a considerable amount of the season, Selebangue’s role as an enforcing defensive anchor off the bench had slowly diminished over time before he reinforced his importance to the team with an emphasis on Saturday. In the first half, Selebenague nearly recorded a double-double, ripping down 11 misses, including nine of them on the offensive end, which even a seasoned basketball man like Hurley couldn’t believe.

“He was terrific,” Hurley exclaimed. “He kind of symbolized how the guys approached the game. He was relentless, going after the ball; if he missed a shot, he was the first guy to be there to get it again until he completed the play. I’ve never really looked at a stat sheet in all my years of doing this and seeing a guy have nine offensive rebounds at halftime.”

Selebangue’s work down low would assist in his nine-point performance, including a much-improved 5-6 mark from the free-throw line, part of a team line of 14-19 that was a sight for sore eyes for one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the country by conversion rate. It was this work at the stripe that helped ASU trim their first-half eight-point deficit down to a tie game, where an offensive explosion keyed by Neal and Perez would cause a 15-point swing in the final seven minutes to give ASU a seven-point cushion at the half.

“We had that segment to end the first half, which was dynamite,” Hurley recalled. “The way we went on that run, I don’t know if I’ve heard DFA that loud in a long time. The spurt that we went on was fueled by our aggression on defense and the plays we were making at that end of the floor. It was a part of a necessary game plan in order to beat this opponent today.”

With a large contingent of Sun Devil faithful on hand in front of a nationally televised audience, Arizona State fed off a loud crowd to fend off multiple second-half charges by USC, never trailing in the back 20 while holding the Trojans scoreless on eight three-point attempts. Not taking their foot off the offensive gas, ASU ran up and down the court for 39 second-half points, highlighted by 19 on the fastbreak by way of thunderous throwdowns from Collins and Neal in particular.

“We don’t really want to run half-court offense if we don’t have to,” Neal noted. “So we rather much get out and show our athleticism, show out talent, show our skills. Defense is offense for us, thats what we preach. There is no better way to score than getting out in transition, getting steals, getting stops, and getting out quick.”

With the full-court press unwavering, and without their two top scorers, the Trojans armor cracked as ASU cruised to a desperately-needed victory.

Alongside Collins, Neal and Perez were two others to make their presence known, as Perez led all scorers with 20 points, and Neal came just one rebound shy of a 17-point double-double. The contributions of the guard trio, combined with Selebangue’s heroics inside and some extra points out of Alonzo Gaffney and Adam Miller, were indicative of the “turning of the page” attitude ASU brought into Saturday. Following a UCLA game where a barrage of technical fouls cost ASU a victory, the discipline of intensity was evident from the jump in a game that Hurley was wary of considering recent events.

“I was very concerned about this game,” Hurley mentioned. “USC has dealt with a lot of adversity this year… They’ve lost very key players, and they’re still very competitive. I thought it would be tough, I was wondering about how fragile we could be and our psyche would be after a loss like that, what it does, the frustration, feeling devastated, feeling your confidence shaken and all those things that happen when you lose in that way. We tried to talk about there being mostly a zero tolerance approach to any communication with our opponent or the officials.”

With ASU accruing just one technical foul charged to Hurley in the first half, the attention to that detail paid off in the win.

Having put together one of its more complete performances of the season, ASU now turns its attention to a high-stakes faceoff with Oregon next Thursday, who currently sits at the top of the Pac-12 standings. Having brushed off their toughest defeat of the season in less than 72 hours, Hurley and company are looking forward to another “prove-it” game that they hope will be one of many as the Sun Devils begin to enter the stretch run.

“We just went in with a next game mentality,” Jose Perez commented. “It was a tough one to UCLA…Togetherness, everybody just buying in and learning from what happened against UCLA.”

“I shared with the team just now that it’s just exciting to put ourselves in a position to play meaningful games,” Hurley said. “We’re 5-2 now in the league, we’re gonna go play a team that’s most likely going to sit at the top of the standings, that’s the games you live for and have the opportunity to compete in.

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