The entire Arizona State team sat down, basking at the screen ahead of them in disgust.

The main entree of the Friday film session was the Sun Devils’ 10-point loss to Utah, leaving a repulsive taste in the mouth of Bobby Hurley and company that could only be cured by change … and a lot of it.

Later in the day, the Sun Devils held practice, or as forward Romello White called it, “punishment for the game we had.”

After a while, the ASU head coach threw a lineup on the floor, one that had never really been tested out before. On the floor was one guard -- Rob Edwards -- along with a quartet of forwards -- White, Kimani Lawrence, Zylan Cheatham, and De’Quon Lake. Notoriously missing from the lineup was freshman guard, and ASU’s leading scorer, Luguentz Dort and sophomore guard Remy Martin.

“It worked well,” Lake said. “We moved the ball. It was very entertaining. I always wanted to play beside Melo and it was a big lineup. We played a 2-3 zone and they couldn’t really score against the 2-3 zone because we had a lot of length.”

The lineup, as Hurley quickly informed his team, would be ASU’s starting five against Colorado.

“Bobby had specific words about (the lineup change) but I think it was just to send a message,” Cheatham said. “He rewarded guys that he thought were playing the right way.”

“I was like, ‘Wow. For real?’” White said, “I’ve always wanted it to happen.”

White got his wish and everything Lake witnessed in Friday’s practice morphed on to the court with seemingly no hitch in ASU’s 83-61 win of the Buffaloes (9-5, 0-2 Pac-12) Saturday night.

The ball funneled down low to Lake and White for 50 points in the paint. The 2-3 zone suffocated Colorado’s offense, forcing them into contested shots en route to a 33 percent mark from the field, the best defensive effort by ASU in Pac-12 play in nearly seven years. The contested pull-up jumpers by the Sun Devils with 20 seconds left in the shot clock disappeared.

And perhaps most surprising given there were four forwards on the court for a majority of the game, the ball flowed around the arc to the tune of a season-high 24 assists.

“I don’t know if we were thinking about it,” freshman forward Taeshon Cherry said, “I don’t know what was happening. We were just moving it, moving it, looking for the open man. When we swing the ball it’s ridiculous because the defense gets lost.”

The Sun Devils (10-4, 1-1 Pac-12) shot 57 percent from the field. That’s not going to happen every night. But it wasn’t a fluke either.

With its forward-laden starting lineup, Cheatham brought the ball up as a pass-first point forward, able to kick the ball to Edwards or Lawrence on either wing or chuck it down low to the twin towers of the 6-foot-8 White and 6-foot-9 Lake.

He often opted for the latter.

The pair of big men, who have only been on the court together a handful of times in their two years in Tempe, finally had their chance to shine. Unafraid to dump passes to each other, and in White’s case, take a 10-foot jumper, the duo combined for 31 points and 15 rebounds, giving ASU a dominant low-post presence that it hasn’t had the luxury of in a while.

“That’s something that’s going to be a tough matchup for a lot of teams,” Cheatham said of Lake and White. “That’s a lot of size with them two being 6-8, 6-9. Then me at 6-8 at the point. Rob stretching the floor. Kimani stretching the floor. That’s going to be tough for teams to match up with. I’m glad they were able to play off each other.”

On Saturday, Hurley felt like a major league manager. His finger hard-pressed to the pulse of his team, understanding the right buttons to push and lineup changes to make. His bold lineup shakeup paid off, offering ASU a blueprint to follow through conference season.

After one good night, though, Hurley didn’t seem absurdly confident that Saturday’s starting five would become the norm.

“That could change at a moment’s notice,” Hurley said. “Remy and Lu are two of the best players on this team. We settled into the eight-man rotation and really any of those guys could start on any given day, and I just thought that we needed to do something to shake things up a little bit.”

For a second, let’s get back to Dort and Martin’s absence from the starting lineup. Change can be great. But the scale ASU shifted doesn’t often happen, especially after just two-straight losses.

In short, Hurley took out Dort, his best scorer who had started every game, and Martin, arguably the Devils’ most impactful leader and facilitator of the offense.

“I was surprised, obviously,” Cheatham said. “Our guys did a really good job reacting to it. No one hung their head on it. They very easily could have copped an attitude and not responded to it. But I think Remy, Lu, they came off the bench and they got the message, we’re going to play together and do what we do. We have to play team ball. I think the message was received.”

Wait, there was a message that needed to be received?

When asked if that was the case, Hurley diverted a bit. Instead, he painted a picture for a team that elevates its players for doing the little things, giving more playing time to the guys whose mental mistakes are few and far between.

“We needed to change some things and be better in certain key areas: decision-making, understanding game management, time and possession,” Hurley said. “And those were key areas with Lu and Remy in the first half as we had a big lead vs. Utah. So, we just need to have a level of accountability and they didn’t hang their heads.”

If there was a message, though, it came through to Martin crystal clear. At times, he can play like a bull in a china shop. That’s a good thing, in most cases. Other times, it becomes reckless and the offense foregoes its rhythm.

On Saturday, the sophomore took two shots and didn’t record a point. You would have thought he had a triple-double the way he teammates praised him. That’s because the point guard became…a point guard. He ran down the floor with the intention to pass, looking for the smallest cracks he could zip a dime through.

“Two tough losses, we talked about it. It’s my job to get other people involved,” Martin said. “I have a great responsibility and I take those two losses to heart. And you learn from it and I learned that I need to do a better job in my position.”

Dort still struggled in some of the areas Hurley mentioned. He missed all four of his three-point attempts, got caught in the Buffaloes full-court press at times and threw the ball away on an inbounds play.

There’s no denying it, he’s struggled in the last month. On Friday, people were sounding the alarms based upon that notion. On Saturday night, though, the cause for concern has dampened down. For Hurley, that’s progress in building a team in it for the long haul.

“We just have to find more of a level of consistency and this was probably as close as we’ve played to putting together two very good halves,” Hurley said. “I still think there’s a lot of ways we can improve if the guys play together and move the basketball the way we did tonight.”