The 2026-27 Arizona State men’s basketball roster has the makings of an NCAA Tournament team entering head coach Randy Bennett’s first season at the helm.
As of Saturday, ASU has the 11th-ranked transfer portal haul in the country, third among teams with new head coaches and the best in the Big 12, according to 247 Sports. The Sun Devils had been outside the top 40 the past three seasons, including down at 70th entering last year.
The last ASU team to make the NCAA Tournament was in 2022-23 behind a transfer haul that ranked 14th with point guard Frankie Collins, center Warren Washington and Cambridge brothers Desmond and Devan.
With the benefit of an extra 16 teams getting a ticket to the Big Dance (24 play-in teams instead of eight previously), Bennett will try to take ASU where he took Saint Mary’s in each of the past five seasons (12 appearances in 25 years).
Following the Thursday addition of Serbian center Filip Malesevic, this year’s roster includes 12 players, 10 of whom are newcomers to Tempe. Three more scholarship spots are open and will likely be filled, as athletic director Graham Rossini continues to highlight ASU’s maximization of the new revenue-sharing model.
Here’s what the starting lineup could look like in Year 1, headlined by No. 10 overall transfer Paulius Murauskas:
PG Joel Foxwell (Portland) — 15.6 points, 4.3 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game in 2025-26; no Division 1 freshman averaged more assists per game. SG Emmanuel Innocenti (Gonzaga) — 6.0 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.0 steal; 30 assists and 21 steals to just two turnovers over his final 14 games (436 total minutes). SF Dillan Shaw (Saint Mary’s) — 7.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 0.9 steals; shot 41.6% on 3.8 3-pointers per game as a freshman. PF Paulius Murauskas (Saint Mary’s) — 18.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists; made First Team All-WCC a second time after playing his freshman season at Arizona. C Ben Defty (Boston University) — 15.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.7 blocks; had seven games with at least three blocks, including a career high of five.Shaw and Murauskas were the only Gaels to follow Bennett from Saint Mary’s. One player previously committed to the Gaels out of high school, combo guard JRob Croy, flipped his pledge to ASU once Bennett took the job.
Croy rounds out the backcourt depth along with Bryce Ford and Vijay Wallace, the pair of returning Sun Devils.
Ford is coming off a recent hip surgery, and Bennett hopes he can return to practice sometime in October. Wallace did not play in 2025-26 after a devastating injury in a preseason exhibition, but he is on track to be fully healthy and available for this season.
Another reliable option to handle the ball and make plays for others is the biggest remaining need, as that’s where depth is most shallow. Multiple additions wouldn’t hurt, either, as ASU’s only player with more than two assists per game in a previous college season outside of Foxwell is Murauskas (2.1).
The wing depth is present but especially young, as Marcus Vaughns (LSU) will turn 19 early in the season and Ajak Nyuon (Australia) turned 19 this week. Neither have logged minutes at the college level yet.
ASU only has a few reliable perimeter shooters to this point, so the wings could use another if it can be found.
Malesevic’s addition solidified the center depth with three 7-footers, the aforementioned Serbian being the tallest at 7-foot-3. Defty, a German native, is more likely to start given his proven prior production at the college level. The third is Nate Garcia, who logged 98 minutes across 16 games while at Cal Baptist playing for new ASU associate head coach Rick Croy.
Top-end size will not be a hindrance on this roster the way it has plagued some previous ASU squads, but the centers’ footspeed will be tested against a very athletic Big 12 schedule.
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