Remy Martin sat at the press conference podium and let out a deep breath. As the reporters in front of him, the sophomore guard knew the Sun Devils got away with one.

“We got lucky,” Martin said after ASU’s 70-67 win over Oregon State. “But at the end of the day, all that matters is we got the win. That’s all that matters.”

Indeed. Thursday’s close victory will show up in the win column just the same for an ASU team that desperately needs a weekend sweep to keep its name in the NCAA Tournament picture.

But it wasn't a thing of beauty -- especially at the end where the Beavers (11-5, 3-1 Pac-12) went on a 9-0 run to cut the Devils’ lead to three, exciting the pulse of a Wells Fargo Arena crowd that thought the game was headed for a blowout.

In all reality, it should have been.

ASU (12-5, 3-2 Pac-12) was up as much as 18 in the second half behind an offensive performance that could best be categorized as consistent. Now that’s not always a good thing but for a Sun Devil team looking for positives, it may be just what they needed.

Five Sun Devils -- Martin, Rob Edwards, Romello White, Zylan Cheatham, and Taeshon Cherry -- scored in double figures. For a team that has won a majority of games on the backs of one singular performance, it was refreshing in a sense.

The off-balance heaves early in the shot clock are all but extinct. The ball was moving to the tune of 15 assists and a 44 percent clip from the field.

“We did a pretty good job of (ball movement,)” Hurley said. “I think we still over-dribbled in some spots but we have to continue to clean that up.”

Coming into the season, ASU had major questions about outside shooting. But if Martin, Edwards, Cherry or Luguentz Dort are shooting bad, they’ll take more shots, hoping some will start falling eventually. It’s sort of like the philosophy last year’s Sun Devil squad had.

But last year’s version of ASU had shooters who you knew were going to fire from deep no matter the circumstances. This year, the Devils don’t have the shooting for that to work every game, especially not in lineups where three or four forwards are on the court.

“We had double-figure threes,” Hurley said. “Our numbers were good at 40 percent overall and Tae had great practices coming into this game and he was very locked in.”

The fourth-year head coach is right. The Sun Devils shot 40 percent from beyond the arc (10 of 25) including four in the second half from Cherry and Edwards, who finished the night with 13 points on three of six from deep.

And, sure, a few quick threes will tilt the scoreboard but it also keeps the defense honest and sets up the rest of ASU’s offense.

“It helps a lot,” White said. “Especially because we have a lot of drivers, a lot of people that like to drive in the paint. And when we drive and kick out, we have people who can hit threes. They did great this game for sure.”

Most of ASU’s momentum-shifting runs this season have come via a great defensive play and some quick transition buckets. But, after consecutive threes kept dropping on multiple occasions, Oregon State was forced to call timeout and regroup.

“I think it’s special, especially when I get going and I get my confidence up,” Cherry said. “It was just a big thing. And Rob hit the last two free throws and those were big for us.”

Cherry touched on Edwards free throws that gave ASU a three-point lead with 12 seconds left and ultimately the win. They were so big, in part, because no one in the building was expecting him to hit those.

And that’s not a knock on Edwards in the slightest -- he’s ASU’s best shooter at the line at about 88 percent -- but his teammates' performance at the line didn’t allow much optimism.

On the night, the Sun Devils connected on just 10 of their 22 shots from the charity stripe (45 percent,) continuing a brutal trend for a team that, coming into the Oregon State game, was shooting about 66 percent from the line.

As he walked past the media room after the game, Remy Martin jokingly told the two media members standing in the hallway, “Don’t ask about the free throws.” But, of course, someone asked.

“We just have to dial in,” Martin said. “Those will come back and hurt us more if we don’t focus in and actually sink our free throws, including myself. We just have to get back in the gym and concentrate.”

For Dort, who missed two free throws late, that started about 10 minutes after the game. He emerged from the locker room before some fans had even exited the building and walked back to the court with a manager and two balls. For the next 25 minutes or so, Dort stood at the free throw line and put up shots and the manager chucked him ball after ball.

It’s that time of the season.

Soon, those free throws will start costing ASU wins -- and, heck, maybe a chance at a tournament berth. The rest of the Pac-12 slate has turned into a do-or-die proposition for the Sun Devils.

The good part, though, is they know that.

“We know after the loss we took (to Stanford,) we shouldn’t have lost that game, that we just have to go hard,” White said.