The ASU men’s basketball team has plenty to build upon as it prepares to travel to Tulsa Saturday.
It’ll be the second road trip this season for the Sun Devils (2-4). The first trip was last week to Orlando, Fla. for the Old Spice Classic.
The three-game tournament was a learning experience for the Sun Devils, who are one of nine Division I men’s basketball teams without a senior on their roster.
Junior wing Carrick Felix said the team needed to give more effort after the team lost to Fairfield 55-44 on Thanksgiving in the tournament opener.
“Basketball is played in many ways,” Felix said. “One of the ways you can separate yourself from everyone is the amount of passion and effort that you put into it.”
Less than 24 hours later, ASU had its best performance of the season, defeating Wake Forest 84-56.
“That’s definitely where I expected the team to be at,” Felix said. “I don’t think we’re far from that either. We’ve still got a lot of things to learn. We’ve got a couple guys that are young. We’ve got a lot of stepping stones to get over but I think we’ll be fine in the long run.”
Perhaps the biggest stepping-stone to overcome is turnovers. ASU averages 18.7 turnovers a game, which ranks 320th out of 338 D-I teams.
Coach Herb Sendek wants to trim that to 12.7 turnovers a game.
“If you look at the margin of our losses, those are six really important possessions,” Sendek said.
ASU has had 15 turnovers or more in every game. During the tournament, the Sun Devils had 22, 15 and 19 turnovers in their three games.
They also have 63 assists and 112 turnovers.
“Ideally, you want that reversed,” Sendek said.
There isn’t a single player with a positive turnover-to-assist ratio on the team.
“We’ve got to get better at making each other better and we’ve got to get better taking care of the basketball, making good decisions, making winning basketball plays,” Sendek said.
Opponents have shot 37.9 percent against ASU — second best in the Pac-12 — but strangely enough, they’re also shooting 37 percent from three-point range.
Sendek hopes to cut down opponent three-point shooting to at least 33 percent.
“In every area, we’ve made some improvements compared to a year ago Thanksgiving, except there’s been two that right now that are just absolutely crushing us,” Sendek said.
ASU will get a man-to-man look from Tulsa’s defense Saturday. The Golden Hurricane looks to bounce back from its 59-56 loss Oklahoma State Wednesday. Sophomore guard Jordan Clarkson, the team’s leading scorer with 15.4 points per game, had 18 points.
The Golden Hurricane started the season 3-0, but since has dropped four out of five. Its only victory in that span came against Jackson State, 57-51.
Tulsa returns home to the Reynolds Center, where it has yet to play since Nov. 13. The Golden Hurricane is 2-0 at home this season.
“Playing on the road is tough,” Felix said. ”I believe if you can win on the road, you can pretty much win anywhere. It’s tough going to places and having to play in their hometown with their home crowd.
“I think we’ll be fine. I think we’ll be ready to go and kick some butt.”
Reach the reporter at master.tesfatsion@asu.edu Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
