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Everything Randy Bennett Said After Arizona State's 85-63 Victory vs. Hofstra

The new ASU head coach earned his third win of his Tempe tenure on Tuesday. Here is what he said postgame:

Arizona State men's basketball head coach Randy Bennett yells out to his team as they play the East Tennessee State Buccaneers at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe on Nov. 2, 2026. | © Joe Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Arizona State took home their third win of the season on Tuesday night, beating a NCAA Tournament team from last season in CAA's Hofstra Pride.

It was a night of three-pointers, hustle plays, and of course, Paulius Murauskas. But what did ASU head coach Randy Bennett think? Here is what Bennett had to say postgame:

Breaking Down ASU's Victory Over Hofstra

"Other than we turned the ball over, we looked careless in the first half. We've been doing a good job of taking care of the ball. We shouldn't turn it over 13 times, but I think we turned it over three times just in transition, throwing it away. We can't do that."

"We're getting better, though. Our push has been good. Seems to be fairly consistent. So we've worked a lot at that because they're (Hofstra) a grindy team. I mean that as a compliment. They're kind of big and strong, and they don't pressure or trap you to give you any easy shots. They just kind of keep grinding at you. They were, I think, a plus 18 on the boards in their two games going into that, so that was a big concern for us."

Thoughts on Paulius Murauskas' 22 Point Night

"He's an interesting player because he draws fouls. You can lose a good player probably to foul trouble at some point in that game. He's good at it. He's big. He's strong. Big part of what we do is playing off him, and you just gotta you gotta make some tough decisions on the other bench as far as what you can do, how you can guard him. I would imagine he is the centerpiece of their scout."

JRob Croy's Three-Point Shooting and ASU's Second Half Surge

"Exceptional. That little stretch (in the middle of the game), I told our team that was probably the play of the game, was the (Ajak Nyuon) three right before half. That's a big play. We're up six, going up nine. He got in for 30 seconds and hit that thing, so that helped. And then second-half starting, JRob put on a flurry, and Foxy (Joel Foxwell) was in on that too. That was an impressive little eight minutes, maybe separated the game. So JRob's getting better, and he'll keep getting better."

Could ASU Put Their Foot on the Gas More to Try and Close Games/Pull Away?

"100%. We try and play that game by four-minute media (timeouts). See how many of those we can win. But I just think that you could compartmentalize and just stay in the moment. You can't play all 40 minutes at once. Just got to keep breaking it off into small chunks and play those. So I thought we did that, other than eight to four (the last second half from eight minutes to four minutes). Other than that, I thought we did a pretty good job. We were really good in the first 10 minutes."

C Ben Defty's Improved Rebounding

"He should get boards. He's seven foot. He's got good hands. He's got to get used to the physicality at this level. But he got them against them, I mean, they have bigs. They have good size, and they come to the boards. They send all five guys to the offensive boards, which most teams don't do that. We needed our bigs to pull them out, pull them out of traffic, pull them out of the crowd. And he did. That's his best game so far. "

Has ASU Found Their Identity?

"Yes, and no. I don't like not having E-Man (G Emmanuel Innocenti). But in some ways, it's probably helped some of our younger guys get some key minutes and have to develop JRob, and it shows us offensively a way that we can be explosive because those guys-you get Bryce (Ford) and Foxy (Foxwell) and JRob out there-they can explode on you for three."

How Close is Innocenti To Returning?

"I think he could be back Friday. He's close, doing shooting drills, stuff like that. So I'm not positive, but Wednesday off, Thursday practice, Friday. I think it's realistic."

Is It Too Early to Gauge Where You Are, In Terms of Big 12 Play?

"I've thought about it all summer, and it's a process, right? I think this could be a good team. I've said that. I'm not just trying to pump our team or our program up. I just compare them to our teams, our good teams at St. Mary's. Those are usually top 25-ish. Let's go through the guys. This guy versus this guy. This guy versus this guy. We're every bit in that conversation of those good teams. We just haven't done it yet. And then it's gonna get crazy in January."

Preparing For The Big 12:

"I think by the time Big 12 (play) hits, we should be ready for the brawl, and it's going to be a brawl. I mean, as long as we do our part, it'll be a brawl. So, that's kind of where I'm at. We have these 14 (non-conference) games. We chipped away at three of them. I mean, this is totally how I think, every day. I think we gotta keep getting a little better, a little better, a little better. Because I know in January, it's coming, and we have to be ready for it."

"Our guys, our guys want to be good. They're great. They want to be good, so they work. They practice, and so far we've been progressing. This team's good. Hofstra's good. They'll be good, and they have some new players, but they're old. They're experienced. They're fourth, fifth, sixth year guys, we're not that. So, yeah, that was a good test."

"I thought we played well. I thought we played well against Northern Colorado. We were okay against East Tennessee State. We're better now than we were then. So, how much better? I don't know, but better. It's hard, hard for me to do. I just think this can be a good team, and I think this can be a good team in the Big 12. It's not fair for me to guess this because I haven't been through the Big 12, so I know it's gonna be tough."

"You're going to Lubbock, you're going to Houston, you're going to Tucson, you're going to Lawrence, you're going to...well, we don't have to go to BYU. Thank goodness....That's what we're trying to get ready for. We're trying to keep getting better every game. We want to win as many games as we can in the non-conference space, all to prepare us for the big brawl."

Bennett and the Devils will continue their brawl-prep this Friday, hosting UL Monroe in another non-conference matchup.

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