ASU Men’s Basketball: Sun Devils beat Cal 70-62 to earn first Pac-12 win

(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)

The No. 25 ranked Arizona State Men’s Basketball team (3-1, 1-0) earned its first Pac-12 conference win of the season Thursday night after beating Cal (2-2, 0-1) 70-62 in Berkeley.

Senior guard Remy Martin had a huge night at Haas Pavillion, as the AP Preseason All-American scored 22 points to lead all scorers and recorded five assists, four rebounds and two steals.

Martin is no stranger to doing damage in Cal’s home arena. The senior guard came into Thursday night’s game averaging 19.7 points in his last three contests there.

“Remy’s performance shows why he’s one of the best players in our league and in the country,” head coach Bobby Hurley said. “In a game where we didn’t have great flow on offense and were not hitting perimeter shots, [Martin] carried us for a large part of that game offensively.”

It wasn’t a pretty start for the Sun Devils. ASU was 3-9 from the field in the first eight minutes of the ball game to go along with five turnovers.

Hurley’s squad eventually settled in behind buckets from Martin and freshman guard Josh Christopher (14 points). ASU closed the first half shooting 13-25 (52 percent) from the field, and after 14 lead changes went into halftime up 35-34.

“You’re just hopeful at this time of year that you can find a way to win games,” Hurley said about his team’s slow start. “You always want to try and play your best but hopefully everyone sees our best performance as we keep getting closer to the spring.”

The back-and-forth battle continued throughout the second half as Cal continued to pound the ball in the paint and crash the offensive glass.

The Golden Bears were led by junior guard Matt Bradley, who recorded 20 points and had four offensive rebounds, but ASU limited his efficiency. Bradley – a 2019-2020 All-Pac-12 Second-Team selection- only shot 7-21 from the field.

“I thought we made [Bradley] work quite a bit,” Hurley said. “You expect a guy like that to get his average, but I think we made him work for it.”

Down the stretch, the Sun Devils saw senior guard Holland Woods make some key plays.

The transfer from Portland State knocked down two 3-pointers in the last five minutes to keep ASU ahead. Woods’ offensive production helped fill the void of senior guard Alonzo Verge Jr., who missed his second consecutive game due to COVID-19 contact tracing.

“Holland was solid, he hit a couple of big shots for us,” Hurley said. “I just sensed that he was more comfortable out there and really had a good feel for what he was doing.”

Along with some big shots from Woods, ASU drew three offensive fouls in the last four minutes of action that helped propel the Sun Devils to victory.

The most notable offensive foul was a charge taken by junior forward Taeshon Cherry with just over a minute left in the game.

“I thought the charges we were able to get with our help defense at key moments were very important to the victory,” Hurley said.

The bad news of the night for ASU came late in the second half when standout freshman forward Marcus Bagley suffered an apparent lower left leg injury. Bagley was sprinting back on defense before he went to the floor grabbing at his left leg.

Hurley said the doctors on hand felt pretty good about it not being a “catastrophic injury.” However, the team won’t have an official diagnosis until Bagley receives further testing when the team gets back to Arizona.

The next game for the Sun Devils is scheduled for December 10 against San Diego State. The Aztecs were the nation’s last undefeated team a season ago, and have already taken down a formidable UCLA squad this season. Tip-off from Desert Financial Arena is set for 8 P.M. MST.