The euphoria struck Remy Martin. He spun around, gazing up at everything and nothing at the same time. It was only for a second, but it was the first time in two hours the sophomore point guard was able to exhale.

He stared up 14,703 inside Wells Fargo Arena as they stared back down at him. They had reason to, however. Seconds earlier, Martin drilled a dagger 3-pointer, sealing ASU’s (15-6, 6-3 Pac-12) first win over Arizona (14-8, 5-4 Pac-12) in the Bobby Hurley era with a 95-88 victory.

The triple, which was Martin’s fifth in a career-high 31-point night, put the Sun Devils up seven just about halfway through overtime. A few minutes later, Martin walked towards the ASU student section, pointed to the sky and then clenched his fist with a determined grin plastered across his face.

There it was, another box checked off on ASU’s journey to become an elite program.

ESPN reporter Molly McGrath quickly grabbed Martin for a post-game interview, only slightly delaying the post-game lap around the arena he takes after every game. This one, though, featured more hugs, more selfies, more chants of “Thank you,” and “We love you, Remy!”

Then he reached the tunnel leading to the Devils’ locker room. His pace slowed down. Briskly walking down the empty hallway, Martin didn’t say a word as he started fixing the strings on his shorts.

The moment never gets too big for him.

As ASU squandered its seven-point lead, allowing the Wildcats to go up by six, Martin started to take over the game. Releasing each shot with incredible confidence and swagger, he scored eight-straight points, finishing with a contested reverse layup to put ASU up one.

“When he’s hitting shots like that and he gets the crowd going, it takes some stress off of your shoulders,” Cheatham said. “When you just battle so hard defensively and finally got a stop and get a rebound. He (Remy Martin) comes down and makes a three and makes them call a timeout.”

Over the last two weeks, Martin’s game has transformed into a balanced attack between shooting and distributing the ball. For a while, ASU’s point guard would be decided by who was closest to the ball, Martin or freshman Luguentz Dort. That has since shifted.

Martin has had 26 assists in his last three games, including eight dimes against the Wildcats.

“Remy’s doing a heck of a job of running the team, of finding spots to get his shot. But, also, he’s moving the basketball really well,” ASU assistant coach Anthony Coleman said. “He’s getting guys looks.

“We’re really proud and excited for his growth. From the beginning of the season until now, he’s grown leaps and bounds.”

***

Zylan Cheatham’s post-game stroll through the hallway was a bit different than Martin’s. His screams of “The Sun Devils win! The Sun Devils win!” preceded him as his feet rapidly slammed on the floor.

Cheatham shows his excitement off the court almost like Martin shows his on it.

After missing a late free throw against USC, Cheatham stood in the bowels of the Galen Center hiding his tears in his jersey as Coleman consoled him. He took the loss to heart. And maybe more than any other scholarship ASU player, being from Phoenix, he takes the rivalry to heart.

His response to playing in it for the first time? Just a 22-rebound, 11-point performance – marking his second 20-rebound night in the last week.

“Honestly I don’t even notice until the end,” Cheatham said. “I know in the first half they had 8 or 9 offensive rebounds and that is something we talked about at halftime. That was something we knew we had to limit because they scored every time they got an offensive rebound. I knew that keeping them off the glass was going to benefit us.”

Added Coleman: “All I can sum it up with is ‘Special.’ He’s leaving his imprint all over this program.”

The 6-foot-8 forward snagged seven of his 22 rebounds in overtime, each seeming more crucial than the last, and added a key layup late in regulation to put ASU up three (a lead that would vanish on a Justin Coleman 3-pointer with 24 seconds left to tie the game.)

Just as Martin did, Cheatham walked around the stands after the final buzzer sounded, taking selfies, giving hugs and even throwing his white headband into the crowd. This was his to cherish. After all, he’s 1-0 against Arizona.

“I remember me and (fellow transfer) Rob (Edwards) looking at each other and saying, ‘We’re going to turn it up next season,’” Cheatham said. “It’s been years of them winning and they’ve destroyed us and won by a couple points. They have won all different type of way, so me and Rob just talked about changing this not just for our sake, but for Hurley’s sake.”

***

For Hurley’s sake, indeed. If the Sun Devil players didn’t understand how large the monkey was on their coach’s back after starting his ASU career with a 0-6 record against the Wildcats, they got a glimpse Thursday morning.

Hurley called his team to the court before shootaround. They all knew it, something was off. Instead of watching film, as they normally do before shootaround, they stood in an empty arena with their coach at the forefront.

“We get in there and we’re on the court and we are like “What are we doing, we’re not dressed, we’re like what’s going on,” Cheatham said.

That’s when someone read the first one.

January 3, 2016. 94-82.

With the team still standing on the line, Hurley started running the length of the court for each point the Sun Devils lost by.

“We were just like, ‘Woah, he’s really crazy. This dude is really crazy,’” Sophomore forward Romello White said. “Kept going down, reading it and running. We were like, ‘Bro, we’re not going to make him run again.”

First, it was 12, then 38 for ASU’s 99-61 loss at the McKale Center. By the end, the fourth-year ASU head coach had run the length of the floor 92 times.

“When I completed each one, someone else read the date and the score and whatever the score was, that was the lengths I had to go,” Hurley said. “I was just happy to make it to the third year because those were a lot less for me, taxing physically. They cheered every time I finished one.

“They read the date and the score and I narrated a little bit and talked about the games that I remembered and things that happened.”

Hurley, who doesn’t eat on game days and had already worked out that morning, said it took him 10 minutes to finish all 92, making up for the 518-426 margin ASU’s had against Arizona in his tenure.

The ASU head coach was a little mad when he heard that one of his players told the media about the sprints, but when asked about it his explanation as to ‘why’ was fairly simple.

“You have to try and do things that you think you can get an edge mentally,” he said. “I don’t know if it worked but who knows? Maybe they reached a little deeper when they were tired tonight, who knows?”

He may not want to give the demonstration credit, but his players didn’t mind. To them, it symbolized the struggling and the pain Hurley and the Arizona State program have gone through.

They saw passion and determination exude through their head coach, and if nothing else, they learned, he really cares. On Thursday, they matched his fire and tenacity. They took the monkey on his back, freeing the program, like a balloon, from a weight that wouldn’t let it reach loftier heights.

“He makes you want to go to war for him,” Cheatham said of Hurley. “He pushes you to a new limit, he makes you feel like you’re capable of more than you are. We just tried to come out and do our jobs. He said it stops tonight and obviously it did.

“The suffering is over.”