IRVINE, Calif. – In his return to Irvine, redshirt sophomore Derin Saran led UC Irvine to a 72-68 exhibition victory over Arizona State at the Bren Events Center Sunday afternoon.

Saran poured in 27 points in the Anteater victory, shooting 11-19 from the floor, while adding 11 rebounds in 33 minutes on the floor. 

Down three points at the halftime break, UCI out-scored ASU 41-34 in the second half, limiting the Sun Devils to just 36.7% (11-30) shooting from the field in the final 20 minutes. 

FROM HEAD COACH RUSSELL TURNER
"Our guys fought hard. You know, we showed improvement from the first half to the second half. We had a lot of guys contribute, and I'm excited for some of the performances of the newcomers. Both Tama Isaac and Jovan Jester Jr. were really good. I thought Nes Emeneke was really good in limited minutes, due to foul trouble. But we have a long way to go."

"I think we were nervous, appropriately nervous, and that's the way that we played in the first half. That's the process that you have to go through, is you build a team and try to get them to buy into the things that we stress to do every day that should give us a chance to win. So, I feel good about that … credit to Bobby Hurley, and the Arizona State staff for taking the game, and coming here and playing with the guys that they had, making a really good competitive game that I think the fans really enjoyed."

FROM GUARD DERIN SARAN
"It felt great just to be back. The first day I stepped on campus this year, everyone welcomed me back. It was a super smooth transition, and really happy we got the win today. I think we all, as a team, started with first game jitters, so we didn't start off really well, including me since I haven't played in a while. After the first half, I think we kept it going, the juices were flowing. I'm just really excited for the rest of the year."

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
>Guard Jurian Dixon added 12 points, 10 in the second half. The reigning Big West Freshman of the Year also recorded four steals and two assists
>Forward Harrison Carrington went 4-9 from the floor and 1-1 at the line for nine points, while grabbing five rebounds
>Senior Kyle Evans had a game-high 12 rebounds, pulling down nine on the defensive end. The forward totaled four points and two assists
>Freshman guard Tama Isaac had a team-high five assists to go with six points and three rebounds
>Forward Akiva McBirney-Griffin was 3-5 from the field for six points. He totaled three rebounds and an assist
>Redshirt freshman Jovan Jester Jr. tallied three blocks, three rebounds and two steals on defense and five points and three assists on offense
> UCI and ASU put up an equal number of shots at 62, with Irvine converting on 26 of their tries (41.9%) to ASU's 24 (38.7%)
>The Anteaters were 85 percent from the line (17-20), while ASU was 14-23 from the stripe (60.9%), including 10-18 in the second half
>Four Sun Devils hit double-figures led by Diop Massamba with 14 points and a team-best eight rebounds

FIRST HALF
>Both teams needed to shake off the dust with ASU scoring first at the 18:10 mark before Akiva McBirney-Griffin started the scoring for the Anteaters at 17:47, 2-2
>A layup by Saran slashing through traffic(15:54) was followed by a pull-up jumper by Jurian Dixon (15:11) to move UCI in front 6-5
>The Sun Devils would take advantage of eight UCI turnovers scoring 13 straight to open a 18-6 lead at 8:52 before a layup and free throw from Harrison Carrington stopped the draught at 8:40
>Saran would ignite the Anteaters with a coast-to-coast acrobatic layup then had a reverse layup all alone underneath the basket. A hustle play by Jovan Jester Jr. that saved a ball from going out of bounds found Saran for another layup, this one along the baseline at 3:43, to get the Anteaters back in the game, 20-25
>Tama Isaac hit a floater down the lane to end the half drawing UCI to 31-34 at the break

SECOND HALF
>ASU came out quickly with the first six points, 40-31 (17:59)
>UCI came alive on a 12-2 run that included seven points from Saran including a three-pointer to give the Anteaters a 43-42 lead with 13:35 to go
>Jester Jr. had a block on one end that led to a Nes Emeneke dunk on the other end at 12:40 (47-43)
>Dixon took the ball on the left wing and went in for a driving dunk with 7-1Massamba Diop in his way at 10:23, 53-48
>Carrington spun baseline to the hoop for two (9:53) then Saran used the baseline on an inbound to put UCI up 57-52 at 9:15
>A dunk and two free throws put ASU within 56-57 (8:24) before Jester Jr. answered with a three-pointer from the left side at 8:02, 60-56
>The Sun Devils responded with the next five to move in front 61-60 (5:46)
>A Kyle Evans block led to a transition layup by Dixon 64-63 (4:09)
>After two ASU free throws gave the Sun Devils a 65-64 lead, McBirney-Griffin powered a layup (3:26) then Dixon had a pair of free throws (2:49) to move UCI in front for good, 68-65
>In the season's first coach's challenge, ASU overturned an out-of-bounds call to retain possession but they could not take advantage
>Saran had a driving layup (1:31) before ASU had a pull-up three-pointer to keep it interesting (68-70) with 43.8 remaining
>Out of a Sun Devil timeout, UCI had the shot clock down to one second before Saran hoisted it up and off the basket where Evans corraled the important offensive rebound. Dixon was then fouled on his way to the basket and made both to solidify the 72-68 lead with 6.4 second on the clock

NOTES
>UCI won the rebounding battle 43-38, including 14 offensive rebounds
> There were nine lead changes and seven ties between the teams
> Irvine dominated the points in the paint battle 44-26
> Sunday's game will not contribute to either teams' records for the 2025-26 season

UP NEXT
UCI will travel to UCLA Oct. 28 for its last exhibition at 7:00 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion.