ASU and Randy Bennett foster local ties with coaching clinic

(Photo: Courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)

TEMPE – When Arizona State men’s basketball head coach Randy Bennett arrived in Tempe in March, one of the first things he did was organize a clinic for high school basketball coaches from around the Valley.

On Saturday, Bennett and his staff welcomed dozens of coaches into ASU’s Weatherup Center. There, they observed practice and learned drills they might soon incorporate into their own systems.

In his first year at ASU, Bennett has made a concerted effort to build relationships with coaches throughout the local basketball community.

“We want to bridge that gap between the community of the Arizona coaches and our program,” assistant coach Casey Benson, one of the clinic’s main organizers, said.

Benson spent last year as an Assistant Coach and Athletic Director for Dream City Christian, a well-known prep school in Phoenix. He returned to his home state after a six-year overseas career. At Corona Del Sol High School in Tempe, Benson was named 2012-13 Arizona Boys Basketball Player of the Year. Both he and Bennett are the only two coaches on staff who played high school basketball in Arizona. The two understand better than anyone how rich for talent the state can be.

Bennett pledged to the coaches in attendance that Arizona will be a key focus in his search for recruits.

Among Big 12 college towns, Bennett said Tempe is the place where he feels most confident finding talent, ahead of Lawrence, Kansas and Morgantown, West Virginia.

Bennett, however, is perhaps best known for building recruiting connections overseas.

While at Saint Mary’s, Bennett helped develop a strong recruiting pipeline from Australia to the NCAA. Since bringing in his first Australian recruit to Saint Mary’s in 2001, many high-major programs have followed. In 2025-26, more than 40 Division 1 programs around the country rostered an Australian.

This year, Bennett brought in three Australians: second-year guard Joel Foxwell, first-year forward Ajak Nyuon and second-year forward Marcus Vaughns.

Though his recruiting ties span worldwide, Bennett never stopped recruiting from his home state.

Mickey McConnell, Bennett’s successor at Saint Mary’s, was once a kid from Mesa, Arizona, whom Bennett recruited to the Gaels. Benson said Bennett even tried to recruit him to Saint Mary’s out of high school. More recently, guard Jordan Ross, who spent his high school years at AZ Compass Prep in Chandler, came to Moraga to play for Bennett in 2023.

Local coaches said they appreciate Bennett’s willingness to connect with them, continuing an emphasis on local outreach that they said had been less prominent under ASU’s previous coaching staff.

“I would say that this staff’s been very intentional with connecting with Arizona prep schools, Arizona high schools, with coaches,” Saguaro High School boys’ basketball coach Lucas Ramirez said. “It’s very different, in a positive way.”

Ramirez says he plans to take some of the drills he learned throughout the clinic back to his own gym.

ASU coaches went over several defensive drills and coaching tips, encouraging the coaches in attendance to implement them into their own practices.

Associate head coach Rick Croy led a step-by-step demonstration of the drills ASU uses to teach its players man-to-man defense.

One of Croy’s biggest points of emphasis while demonstrating the drills was their adaptability to different personnel. ASU used Nyuon, who is 6’10”, and 7’3” first-year center Filip Malesevic as subjects during a drill on defensive switching, but Croy said the drills are just as effective with big men of any height.

“That’s always the nice thing with a clinic,” Ramirez said. “You’re probably not going to use everything, but if you can take one or two nuggets and find a way to implement them in your program, it’s fantastic.”

Ramirez has been familiar with Bennett for years.

“If you know basketball, you know Randy Bennett,” he said.

His favorite part of Bennett’s system is the simplicity. Throughout his tenure at Saint Mary’s, Bennett was known for a slow but efficient offense and having one of the best teams in the country in offensive rebounding and defense. Those concepts can be taught at any level.

Bennett has never relied on spectacular athletes to drive team success. Instead, he has favored undersized, intelligent players whom he can develop into disciplined defenders with a high basketball IQ. Two of Bennett’s most successful players at Saint Mary’s fit that mold perfectly: Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills.

“They keep it simple,” Ramirez said. “They have a long track record of having success with that.”

Only six months into his ASU tenure, Bennett is making an impact on Arizona basketball, and high school coaches from around the Valley are taking notice.

“Arizona’s excited to have one of their own here at ASU,” Ramirez said. “I think that goes a long way in the world we’re in today, with NIL and Transfer Portal, if you find guys who really want to be here and take pride in being from Arizona. Take pride in being at Arizona State.”