Going into the season, one thing Arizona State men's basketball coach Bobby Hurley wanted was to see his team do better defending its own floor. His team also was looking to avoid one of those "bad" losses that can hurt you come NCAA postseason selection time. ASU had a couple of those last season and had to squeak their way into the field with a late-season surge.

The Sun Devils accomplished both of those things, turning back Sam Houston State 78-61 Wednesday in nonconference play at Desert Financial Arena. With the win, ASU (4-2) improved to 3-0 at home.

ASU shot 51.6% (33-for-64), and finished with a 50-38 advantage in points in the paint as well as a 28-22 advantage in fast break points. Most impressive were the team's 19 assists to nine turnovers.

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Sam Houston, out of the Western Athletic Conference, shot 35.3% (24-for-68) and had 15 turnovers.

ASU played without 7-foot center Shawn Phillips and 6-9 Zane Meeks, both of whom are nursing foot injuries. It was the third game missed for Phillips who is not expected back until the start of conference play at the earliest.

"We scrapped and battled tonight. I'm proud of my team," Hurley said. "This was a dangerous game. I was very concerned coming into this game, considering the injury issues we've had on the frontcourt but we really competed. Defensively it was our best half as far as getting deflections. It got us in position of getting stops. I thought we might be able to run on Sam Houston in transition. They play very hard. We thought that was something we could exploit. Fortunately we had the stops and were able to get some buckets in transition. It was fun to watch the guys play that way tonight."

Turning point

It was a game ASU led from start to finish. They led by as many as 17 points in the first half, that advantage coming at 29-12.

The Bearkats (4-4) scored the next seven points to cut the deficit to 29-19 but that was as close as the visitors would get. ASU scored seven of the next 11 points, going up 36-23 on a bucket by Jose Perez. The Sun Devils never looked back.

Standout performers

Perez scored a season-high 24 points, 16 of those in the first half. He was 9-for-13 from the field and added eight rebounds and three assists.

Three others were in double figures too. Jamiya Neal added 14 while Alonzo Gaffney and Frankie Collins added 12 each. Collins also had seven rebounds, seven assists and added three steals. Neal added eight rebounds while Gaffney grabbed six rebounds and blocked three shots.

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Junior guard Damon Nicholas led the Bearkats with 15 points and grabbed four rebounds. Fellow Junior guard Davon Barnes chipped in with 13 points, three assists and three rebounds.

They said it

"Overall just feeling better. We're still finding ourselves, still not the entire way there as hopefully we add pieces that aren't available right now as we go over the next few weeks. We have a chance to incorporate those guys and have a chance to be pretty good."

-ASU coach Bobby Hurley on the team's improvement

"Defense. That's always been our calling card. With our offense struggling right now we always got to rely on getting stops and getting out in transition and getting easy buckets. So the more we can get stops and the easy transition buckets, the better for us."

-ASU junior guard Jamiya Neal

We have good shooters. Everyone on the team can shoot. It's just a confidence thing, I feel like. They're going to start falling for all for us.

-ASU senior guard Jose Perez

Up next

The Sun Devils remain at home for a 1 p.m. game on Sunday against San Francisco. The teams played last year in San Francisco and it was the Dons handing the Sun Devils one of their worst losses of the season, by a score of 97-60. Three current Sun Devils played in that game with Neal scoring 11 points and grabbing five rebounds.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jose Perez scores 24 points as Arizona State cruises past SHSU