Cambridge brothers were a ‘no-brainer’ package for ASU men’s basketball

The Arizona State men’s basketball team welcomed several transfer players this season, including the Cambridge brothers at guard.

Desmond Cambridge is a fifth-year transfer by way of Nevada, where he averaged 16.3 points and shot 36% from three in 56 games. His little brother, Devan Cambridge, is a senior transfer by way of Auburn. In three seasons, he started 33 of 91 games and averaged six points and 3.1 rebounds.

According to Desmond, playing with his brother at a Power 5 school is a dream come true.

“I definitely wanted to play with [Devan] when he first came out of high school, but the cards didn’t align,” Desmond told reporters at Pac-12 media day on Wednesday. “As soon as we both knew that we were going into the transfer portal, it was a no-brainer. We were going to be a package deal.”

That wasn’t a problem for head coach Bobby Hurley, whose team polled seventh in the conference by the media.

“As soon as I spoke to [Hurley] for the first time, he was already like, ‘Yeah, we want both you and your brother,'” Cambridge added. “That was very important for me, just knowing that the coach wanted both of us.”

With several new faces expected to contribute this season, it’s important to establish roles and acclimate the newcomers. Hurley said last year’s team took a long time to jell and, though not the sole reason they stumbled to a 6-13 start, wanted to be proactive in getting everybody clicking sooner this year.

“We’ve done a lot more, I think, team-related workouts, putting in drills we’ll use in practice, installing some offense,” Hurley told reporters on Wednesday. “With the transfer portal now and the turnover year-to-year with players’ movement, you have to do more team-related things.”

Now that the season opener is less than two weeks away, where does Hurley see the Cambridge brothers making an impact?

“They just bring a lot of intangibles right away … very dependable in practice every day,” Hurley said. “[Desmond] is an explosive scorer — can put points on the board. That’s something we struggled with last year so he brings that to the table.

“Devan brings a lot of what Kimani Lawrence brought for us last year. A lot of ‘glue guy’ stuff, rebounding, loose balls, good on defense, communicating so he’s a good all-around player.”

Hurley added that Desmond “works at it on the perimeter” and accepts the challenge of guarding talented scorers, taking on sophomore guard Marcus Bagley in practice a lot.