Paulius Murauskas scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds Monday night as Arizona State gave Randy Bennett a win in his coaching debut with the school, stopping visiting East Tennessee State 75-65 in Tempe, Ariz.
Murauskas, the preseason Big 12 Conference Newcomer of the Year, converted 11 of 12 foul shots for the Sun Devils. Joel Foxwell added 15 points and five assists, while Dillan Shaw hit for 13 points and reserve Filip Malesevic contributed 12.
Arizona State made just 23 of 53 field-goal attempts (43.4%), including only 8 of 26 from the 3-point arc (30.8%). But it won the game at the foul line, hitting 21 of 26 (80.8%) while the Buccaneers canned 8 of 12 (66.7%).
Point guard BJ Ward starred in defeat for East Tennessee State, pumping in a game-high 25 points. Trevor Hennig came off the bench to score 15, and Jaylen Cooper added 10 points, but the Buccaneers gave up 23 points off 13 turnovers while dropping their season opener.
Ward pulled East Tennessee State within 65-59 with 2:33 left on a layup after stealing the ball from Murauskas. However, Murauskas completed a three-point play and Shaw canned a 3-pointer during a 7-0 run that made it 72-59 at the 1:18 mark.
The pregame storyline was how would Arizona State fare in its first game under Bennett, who left Saint Mary’s after a successful 25-year run at the small West Coast Conference school to try to inject life into a program searching for relevance in the loaded Big 12 Conference. Murauskas followed Bennett from Saint Mary’s to Tempe.
The Sun Devils trailed for just 1:03 in the first half but weren’t able to get much of a working margin against East Tennessee State, which was picked second in the preseason Southern Conference poll.
Emmanuel Innocenti drained a 3-pointer for a 25-15 Arizona State lead at the 7:16 mark. Murauskas canned two foul shots to make it 32-20 with 4:47 left in the half, but the Buccaneers used a late run to get back into contention.
Cooper’s 3-pointer with 36 seconds remaining enabled East Tennessee State to pull within 37-31 at halftime.