ASU Gearing up for Season Without Stars

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Potential has replaced production on Arizona State's roster.

This does not trouble senior point guard Derek Glasser.

No James Harden? No Jeff Pendergraph? No problem, Glasser says.

"I think our expectations are going to be almost identical to what they were last year," Glasser said. "Just because we lost James and Jeff — we have tremendous talent on this team, enough talent to do what we did or more than last year."

Unbiased observers might be a bit more skeptical. In a preseason poll, reporters assigned to the Pac-10 picked ASU to finish seventh — four spots lower than the Sun Devils wound up last season.

That's a blow to the pride of an emerging program that last spring won an NCAA tournament game for only the second time since 1995. The first-round victory over Temple capped a 25-win season, which included once-unfathomable sweeps of UCLA and Arizona (ASU beat the Wildcats three times counting the Pac-10 tourney).

Coach Herb Sendek said he hasn't talked with his players about outsiders' expectations.

"I don't think we need to rely on what other people say to motivate us," he said. "The only meaningful motivation is that which comes from within. Hopefully as the season starts we don't have to go there to get our juice (flowing). I think the juice is flowing anyway."

After ASU's joyride ended last spring, Harden left for Oklahoma City and Pendergraph graduated and also moved on to the NBA.

Their departure leaves the Sun Devils with a slew of question marks as they tune up for Sendek's fourth season. The soft-spoken Sendek is 54-45 at ASU, and his first three teams finished 10th, fifth and third.

"Our program has continued to make steady progress," Sendek said. "It's not always going to be linear like that. I don't know if there is any sports team or organization that has that trajectory all the time. On a broad-based front, we're making progress and I think we're moving in the right direction."

The biggest question facing Sendek this season: who will put the ball in the basket?

Harden, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, and Pendergraph combined to score 34.6 of Arizona State's 69.4 points per game, sixth among Pac-10 teams.

"I'm really not looking at it that we're just replacing James and Jeff, or that we're trying to find two guys to insert into their positions," Sendek said. "I'm looking at it from the entire team standpoint as opposed to we lost two, so we have to plug two in. We'll be an entirely different team. It will take its own shape."

Perimeter gunner Rihards Kuksiks, who averaged 10.8 points per game, is the leading scorer among the returners. The junior from Latvia hit 41.9 percent from beyond the arc, eighth in the nation.

Glasser averaged only 8.8 points per game last season, but he emerged as a scoring threat in the postseason. When Harden managed only nine points in the NCAA tourney opener, Glasser's career-high 22 points bailed out ASU in a 66-57 victory over Temple.

Glasser, who led the Pac-10 in assist-to-turnover ratio last year, also nailed big 3-pointers to seal victories over UCLA and Arizona.

"In my mind, Derek is as improved as most any player in college basketball in the last three years," Sendek said. "You talk about big shots and who's going to take them, Derek has done that for us."

The Sun Devils have always been a defense-first outfit under Sendek; they yielded 60.5 points per game last year, second in the Pac-10.

ASU is expected to stick with the match-up zone that has bewildered opponents in recent seasons.

Junior guard Jamelle McMillan also returns, as does 6-foot-10 senior Eric Boateng, who averaged 1.8 points per game last year.

Starting guard Ty Abbott had arthroscopic knee surgery earlier this month and could miss at least a month.

With an unsettled lineup, 6-foot-5 freshman guard Trent Lockett, a product of Minnetonka, Minn., is expected to play a big role.

Sendek isn't prone to raves, but when asked about Lockett recently, he replied, "I like everything about Trent Lockett. I love Trent Lockett."

Other newcomers include 6-foot guard Brandon Thompson of San Antonio; 6-foot-7 forward Victor Rudd of Los Angeles; and 7-foot Russian Ruslan Pateev, who played at Montverde Academy in Florida.

"The face of our team is changing, but it happens to every team," Glasser said. "A lot of people lost a lot of guys this year, so we have to rebuild just like they do."

Sendek drew up a soft nonconference schedule that will give his team a chance to mature. Arizona State plays only one nonconference road game — at Brigham Young on Dec. 8 — before it opens the Pac-10 season at UCLA on New Year's Eve.

"We believe in our locker room that we're as good as any other team in the conference," Glasser said.