ASU’s Randy Bennett meets media after health scare

TEMPE – It didn’t take long for Randy Bennett to address the oddity of holding an introductory news conference nearly a month and a half after the announcement of his hiring. 

“Sorry about the pump fake on the first one,” Bennett said, smiling as he looked down at the lectern in front of him. 

Exactly 45 days ago, on March 23, ASU announced Bennett as its new men’s basketball coach, hoping to steer the program back toward success in a competitive Big 12 Conference. 

Due to medical complications that hospitalized the 63-year-old for 10 days, he couldn’t address the media until weeks later, as the school officially introduced him on Thursday morning. 

“(For) two weeks I wasn’t in the office after being in the hospital for 10 days,” Bennett said. “It threw me off a little. The last thing I needed to be worrying about was the portal or the job. … Now I’m catching my stride and able to work long days.”

Bennett didn’t address the specifics of his condition.

It’s not the first time a head coach at the Division I level has been in the public eye while dealing with a health issue.

Last October, Indiana State coach Matthew Graves underwent triple bypass surgery and returned to the court nearly two months later, at first in a limited capacity as he gradually worked back to full strength. 

Within the Big 12 conference, Kansas coach Bill Self has been open about heart issues he’s faced, dealing with blocked arteries and an irregular heartbeat. It has caused Self to miss several games. It’s become a persistent issue that the school continues to monitor. 

Still, given Bennett’s track record, a palpable buzz floated among boosters and alumni in the spacious confines of the Arizona State basketball practice facility, the Weatherup Center. A program in dire need of a jolt in the right direction got the first chance to display its new coach. 

“When this process began, there was one name at the top of the list,” ASU athletic director Graham Rossini said of Bennett. “We’re lucky that the one name that was at the top of the list is the coach that we’re here to welcome and introduce today.

“His experience as a coach was very attractive. His desire to be at ASU was really what solidified him as the choice for us.”

Bennett spent 25 years building Saint Mary’s into one of the top mid-major powers in the sport, amassing a 589-228 record to become the program’s winningest coach. In his quarter-century-long stint in Moraga, California, he took the Gaels to the NCAA Tournament 12 times and won seven regular-season West Coast Conference titles.  

Despite the abundance of success he had with Saint Mary’s, Bennett maintained that he always had his eye on the ASU job. 

“When people would ask me, I’d say there was one: ASU,” Bennett said about potentially leaving Saint Mary’s.

“I wanted to be here in my dream job. I think you can win championships here.”

Bennett’s arrival in Tempe marks a homecoming for the longtime head coach. A Valley native, he grew up in Mesa, attended Westwood High School and then played under his father, Tom Bennett, at Mesa Community College. During his youth, Bennett watched former ASU coach Ned Wulk lead the Sun Devils to nine NCAA Tournament appearances, including three trips to the Elite Eight, which still stands as the program’s deepest run in the tournament. 

“ASU was the deal,” Bennett said. “You had to be the best of the best to get an opportunity to go to ASU. That was my feel on what ASU was. ASU was powerful. … That’s kind of always how I’ve seen ASU.”

To take the program back to these heights, Bennett will need to build a strong foundation in his first few years,. He cited retention of players as his preferred method of roster building. 

While Bennett attended to his medical issues, his staff went to work in the portal to construct a roster that would position the Sun Devils to be competitive in the first year of his tenure. 

“They carried me for the first two weeks of this job,” Bennett said of his assistant coaches. “I didn’t come into the office until the day before the portal opened.”

Whether through Zoom or over a phone call, Bennett stayed in constant contact with his coaches while he recovered. 

“There’s kind of an unspoken chemistry, so we know what’s important to him,” associate head coach Rick Croy said. “We had daily conversations about what we wanted to focus on and how we were doing things. He was pretty amazing in that window because he needed to focus on his health, and we needed to make sure we put the right building blocks in place.”

Before taking the job, Bennett needed reassurance from the administration that he would be supported with the resources to be successful. In the new landscape of college basketball, which is dominated by a revolving transfer portal and an NIL craze, having financial backing and complete alignment from the athletic department is a necessity. 

After speaking with Rossini and ASU president Michael Crow, Bennett believes the Sun Devils are ready to go all in to once again compete in the postseason. 

“I just had to feel it from them that they got it (and) understood it,” Bennett said. “You have to have some money. The best way to do it is if you can retain players. That’s the way we’ll do it. But you have to have money for that. … 

“Our handshake deal was that ‘I’m going to need your help. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m going to need your help.’ And (Rossini) is in.”

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