The Randy Bennett era is underway at Arizona State. All but two guards, junior Bryce Ford and Vijay Wallace, entered the portal following Bobby Hurley’s final season as head coach of the Sun Devils, which declined to renew his contract following a disappointing 2025-26 campaign.
Instead, Bennett made the jump from his longtime home of St. Mary’s to head up one of the Big 12’s newest members, and revive a basketball program in three years. He’s hard at work in the portal with nine commitments already, and he finally spoke about his new gig publicly on Thursday.
Bennett, too, spoke on one particular outbound transfer, 7-foot-1 freshman center Massamba Diop, now signed with Gonzaga, who apparently wrote down a pretty big number when his representation met with the Bennett coaching staff earlier this offseason.
Diop, a rising big man from Rufisque, Senegal, averaged 13.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game in his first season of college basketball. After the Sun Devils finished 12th in the Big 12 last season, Diop entered the transfer portal but seemingly made his situation clear with ASU: He wanted a raise.
Look, you can’t blame a young player for navigating every option available to them these days, and I’m not making Diop into some kind of villain for doing what every other big in the country is doing right now: Gaining representation and seeking out the best offer they can.
For better or worse, college athletics is now a business. Schools are adjusting to the House vs. NCAA Settlement every day. That means conversations like Diop’s are going to be an annual thing, and it’s not going to be easy on coaches to retain the guys they need on the floor.
Much like in the 2013 blockbuster hit Moneyball, coaches are going to have to get used to cutting guys loose when they can no longer afford them.
But then again, Bennett is a no-nonsense kind of guy.
The Mesa, Arizona, native turned St. Mary’s into a consistent contender in the West Coast Conference with seven regular-season titles and 11 different NCAA Tournament appearances with the Gaels in his 26-year career.
Bennett and a lot of longtime coaches like him aren’t going to ignore and avoid the ramifications of NIL, much the opposite. Instead, the best coaches will learn to work within their budgets and develop a roster aligned with their spending.
Leaving St. Mary’s after almost three decades took a pretty good job, Bennett said on Thursday. The newly hired coach expanded on his passion for Arizona State’s athletic department and particularly the basketball job:
