As the final buzzer finally sounded in Tuesday night’s hard-fought comeback victory for the ASU men’s basketball team over TCU, Frank Sinatra’s song, “New York, New York,” blared from the speakers at Wells Fargo Arena.

Not so fast.

Before ASU can head to the Big Apple, there is business to take care of.

The San Francisco Dons come into Tempe first for an early 4:30 p.m. tipoff on Friday at Wells Fargo Arena.

“We’re excited about New York, make no mistake about it,” head coach Herb Sendek said after the TCU game. “Who wouldn’t be? But we talked about San Francisco in the locker room.”

The reason that the game is so early on Friday is that ASU wanted to get in another game before heading to New York, but the ASU volleyball team has a match against California on Friday night.

“It’s an early Business Man Special," Sendek said. “We play all kinds of times, 9:30 at night, 4:30 on a weekday. It’s like a gym class; you never know when we’re going to play.”

USF has opened the season with victories over Cal Poly and Dominican University. Both of those victories came at home, and Friday will start a stretch of five-of-six games on the road for the Dons, who went 3-13 away from War Memorial Gymnasium last season.

“You have to learn how to win on the road,” USF coach Rex Walters said. “Obviously, possessions are much more valuable, and the negatives are more pronounced and make a bigger impact on you. It will be a totally different environment for our young guys.”

The Dons are led in scoring by 6-foot-7 senior Dior Lowhorn, who is averaging 22 points per game. Sophomore guard Kwame Vaughn is the second part of the scoring duo, averaging 19.5 points per game.

Walters said he is concerned about the size and athleticism ASU has to offer at all five positions.

“Size will be a big factor, across the board from the one through five,” Walters said. “On paper and in real life, this will be the biggest, strongest, most talented team we’ve played so far.”

For the Sun Devils, Friday will be their third game in five days. Sendek has stressed to his team that they can’t look ahead to next week’s trip.
“We need to play 40 minutes [on Friday],” Sendek said. “Everybody needs to know that we play San Francisco. All of our energy has to be on Friday afternoon.”

Through three games, Sendek said he has been extremely pleased with the effort and intensity his team has shown on the court.

“I like the fact that we’re battling,’’ Sendek said. “We’re playing hard. In each of our three games, we’ve competed.”

Sendek did make one change to his starting lineup on Tuesday night, replacing senior guard Jerren Shipp with freshman Trent Lockett. Sendek said that the reason was simple: Lockett has earned his way onto the floor.

“He’s clearly rising to another level and producing,” Sendek said. “He’s really earned that.”

Reach the reporter at andrew.gruman@asu.edu