OMAHA, Neb. - No one in the history of college basketball has assisted on more made baskets than Bobby Hurley. With 1,076 assists to his name, it takes a lot to impress one of the all-time great point guards in college basketball, but Marreon Jackson did so Tuesday night.

As Boston College transfer guard Jay Heath dribbled the ball baseline inside the eight-minute mark of Arizona State’s second half with Creighton, he looked to the right wing for help as the shot clock wound down. Catching with 11 seconds remaining in the possession, ASU’s graduate student point guard got past Creighton freshman guard Ryan Nembhard.

“When I drove – I think I had gotten two buckets in a row (Jackson had made three of the past four ASU shots), and the defense’s attention was going to be on me. When I jumped, I was going to see if the big dude (Creighton 7-foot-1 sophomore center Ryan Kalkbrenner) was going to contest it, and I was going to dump it off,” Jackson explained to Devils Digest postgame, after a 58-57 win improved Arizona State’s record to 5-6, and gave the Sun Devils their third straight victory. “When he jumped, I saw backside (sophomore guard DJ Horne’s) man try to crack down and go for the rebound, and him just standing there right by himself. I knew he was going to hit it.”

Jackson’s remarkable pass set up Horne for his second 3-pointer of the night and gave the Sun Devils a 50-46 advantage with 7:34 to go in the contest.

“It was great vision because he left his feet, and he was blind to where DJ was,” Hurley said of one of Arizona State’s seven second-half assists. “So, it was really surprising that he saw him. But that’s what really good point guards do.”

The hands of Marreon Jackson were all over Arizona State’s second half. Rebounding, passing, and scoring, the 2021 MAC Player of the Year, was superb in various areas, putting up a 10-point, five-rebound, four-assist performance. After a poor shooting performance in the first half – and an early airball for Jackson himself, the offensive execution of the Sun Devils picked up in the final 20 minutes.

With the game tied at 56, Jackson initiated the ASU offense with a high-post pass to junior forward Jalen Graham. With just four assists through the first ten games, Graham found Heath cutting backdoor wide-open after a fake pin down screen by Jackson. The layup gave the Sun Devils a 58-56 advantage that Arizona State would hold onto.

“We just stayed the course. Shots weren’t falling in the first half, so coach was just telling us we all knew we could do this,” Heath said following a 10-point and team-leading seven-rebound performance. “We started executing. We’ve got a mature team, so the environment everyone has seen. It was just about us staying together, not getting in our own heads.”

“Our offense was way better than it was in the first half,” Hurley said of the second half, which saw the Sun Devils shoot 48.3 percent from the floor to erase what became an eight-point deficit early in the second half. “Jalen Graham’s pass to Jay on the back cut was excellent in the closing minutes. They had gotten us on several throughout the game, so it was fitting that we ended up getting them back with a layup.”

Battered and bruised, Jackson has continued to play. Despite dealing with injuries to his groin and wrist, Jackson said he wanted to compete in any opportunity possible for Arizona State and has continued to play through pain for the entire season.

“I’ve been dealing with a lot. My groin for the first six games was messed up really bad,” admitted Jackson while wearing a splint on his right wrist. “I decided to play because unless I can’t walk, I’m going to play.”

Tuesday night was perhaps Jackson’s best all-around performance, especially given the caliber of opponent, during his brief time in a Sun Devil uniform. It also was the most aligned his play has been with the early season evaluation that Hurley provided the media.

Despite struggling offensively for much of the year, a grind-it-out defensive identity is being formed by these Sun Devils. Three straight wins – two on the road and one in overtime – have come during a stretch of four consecutive games in which ASU has held opponents below 70 points.

“We’re still in an offensive slump right now,” Heath said, with the Sun Devils entering Tuesday night 308th in points per game in Division I. “We should be like 70s, 80s – probably 80s for points, but we’re going to get there. Our defense is really helping us right now.”

The Sun Devil defense was instrumental in shutting down Creighton’s go-to options. ASU’s defense limited Creighton’s leading scorer Ryan Hawkins to just six points on 2 of 12 shooting and disrupted Nembhard’s rhythm on a night that saw the freshman guard score seven points while contributing six turnovers and a miss of a potential game-winner.

“We made enough winning plays down the stretch,” Hurley said as the Sun Devils head home for a matchup with undefeated San Francisco Sunday at Desert Financial Arena. The win over Creighton improved the Sun Devils to 9-3 in road non-conference games under Hurley and gave ASU a tie for the nation’s lead in wins during games decided by five points or less since 2019. “It just comes down to the fight and the toughness and the trust in each other. We’ve played great competition, and we’ve been really tested. We’ve been in these moments.”

Arizona State is starting to point to the historic 51-29 loss to Washington State as a turning point in the season, winning three straight – all by less than five points – to inch closer to a .500 record.

“We were embarrassed. That was embarrassing,” Jackson recalled of the loss that dropped the Sun Devils to 2-6 at the time. “I’ve never seen a college game at this level be that many points, so we knew that we had to crack down, and guys had to look themselves in the mirror and get right back at it.

“It’s college basketball. There are 20 or 30 games, and we’ll get those types of games back.”

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