ASU men's basketball improves to 2-0 for first time since 2009-10

Good things happen when you give the Sun Devils five days to prepare for their opponent, and unfortunately for Florida A&M, Sunday proved to be no different. The Arizona State men's basketball team picked up its second victory of the season with a 97-70 win to improve to 2-0 for the first time since the 2009-10 season.

ASU's 97 points is the third most under Coach Sendek. The most came on Nov. 20, 2009 when his team dropped 104 against San Francisco.

Jordan Bachynski picked up where he left off in the opener, hitting a hook shot for the first basket of the day. He followed that up with a put-back lay-in to put ASU up 4-0. From there the Sun Devils never looked back.

Senior Carrick Felix provided quick entertainment for the crowd with a powerful highflying dunk to help the Sun Devils gain a 10-2 edge before the first media timeout. Coming out of the timeout Felix hit a three before slamming through another vicious dunk, forcing A&M to call another timeout with the score 15-4.

While opposing teams may be focusing their efforts on stopping Jahii Carson, they certainly cannot forget about the talents of backup point guard Chris Colvin, who sparked the home team with 12 early points in the first half, including two three-pointers, to lead all scorers at the half. Felix finished the period with nine points.

Eight different Sun Devils scored points in the first half as they took a 45-32 lead heading into the locker room. The 45 points by ASU is the ninth-most in a half during the Coach Sendek era. The most also came in 2009 when they dropped 58 in the first half against San Francisco.

A Bachynski block and a reverse layup on the ensuing fast break by Felix kicked off the scoring in the second half, setting a tone that ended up to be much like that of the first half. Carson joined the fun with a few acrobatic layups of his own while Bachynski and Felix kept sending basketballs flying towards the stands with monster rejections.

The Rattlers cut the deficit to five points at 57-52, but that was as close as they would get in the second half as the Sun Devil offense proved to be too much to contain.

Jonathan Gilling, in his second year at Arizona State from Denmark, had himself a career day on the boards. He racked up 15 rebounds, a career high, to go along with his 13 points.

It took Carson only two games to exceed the 20-point mark, as he finished with 20 points and 7 assists, both good enough to lead the team.

For the second game in a row ASU had at least five players score in double-digits. The last two times that happened occurred on Dec. 23 and 29 on a team led by former standouts and current NBA players James Harden and Jeff Pendergraph. The Sun Devils had five players do so today (Carson, Colvin, Bachynski, Gilling and Felix). Nine different players scored for ASU.

Arizona State is back in action Tuesday night at 7:00 (MT) from Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe as they take on Cornell looking to improve to 3-0.

SUN DEVIL CAREER BLOCKS
1. 191 - Mario Bennett, '91-95
2. 167 - Tommy Smith, '99-2003
3. 160 - Rodger Farrington, '95-97
4. 153 - Ike Diogu, '02-05
5. 148 - Alton Lister, '78-82
6. 131 - Jeff Pendergraph, '05-09
7. 93 - Kurt Nimphius, '76-80
8. 83 - Sam Williams, '78-81
8. 83 - Mike Batiste, '96-99
10. 76 - Jordan Bachynski, '10-present
10. 76 - Shawn Redhage, '99-2003
10. 76 - Jim Deines, '82-85