Arizona State guard Tra Holder taking the nation by storm

As freshmen continue to steal the headlines, Arizona State’s upperclassman Tra Holder emerges as one of the nation’s premier bucket making marvels.

If you had the Arizona State Sun Devils 6-0 to start the season, you win a prize. It is a fictional one, but a prize of great projection abilities nevertheless. Give yourself a pat on the back, pal.

Credit should be spread throughout the team, starting with head coach Bobby Hurley, then to all five players who are averaging in double-figures for the Sun Devils. Note that now, please, as we’re about to ignore everyone but a single human.

The sexiness that makes the Sun Devils so exciting to consume rests within the torso of 6-foot-1 guard Tra Holder.

“Who in the hell is Tra Holder?” a probably Cold Coast-dwelling human would likely ask.

He’s the upperclassmen to end all upperclassmen. A talent who Hurley gives complete freedom to operate on the offensive side of the ball. So much so, in fact, the last time a player had this much freedom on a team of consequence was when Jimmer Fredette was trotting about collegiate hardwoods for BYU.

Yes, that Jimmer.

No. They are not at all similar in playing style, skill-set, or overall ability.

It is just that, in the same way Jimmer was allowed to hurl attempts at the basket from 30-feet or beyond, Holder has been given the key to ASU’s kingdom.

How he goes, Arizona State goes, and none of this is incredibly shocking.

Well … outside of the fact that Holder has clearly morphed from a good volume-shooting guard to a master in the art of prolific scoring. If he were a Wal-Mart painting you’d hang at home last season, he’s now the Mona Lisa being displayed in some museum, just waiting for Nic Cage or Tom Hanks to discover some hidden secret.

Dan Brown’s The Tra Holder Code?

Maybe.

Through six games this season, Holder is averaging all the attractive counting-stats. 23.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game, had he entered this season with more hype attached to his name, people would be writing early Naismith Player of the Year essays on the kid.

Then again, that time might not be too far off.

Here is where things begin to get especially neat for both Holder and Arizona State. Previously known to get buckets in bunches, he wasn’t exactly doing so with incredible efficiency. Last season, he was shooting a fine 43 percent from the floor and a more than admirable 37 percent from beyond the arc. So far during his last collegiate season, however, he’s been shooting an absurd 52 percent from the field and a mind-boggling impressive 50 percent from distance.

That is absurd.

Those numbers are not sustainable. Not just because Holder is incapable of keeping that pace, but due to the fact that there isn’t a player in the nation who can be that sort of efficient over the course of an entire season.

Still, these numbers aren’t complete aberrations. While ASU has played a few cupcakes, Holder’s best performance this season came against the Xavier Musketeers, in which he dropped 40 bleeping points on 14-of-22 shooting from the floor while making 5-of-8 from the land of 3.

For those unaware how math works, those numbers are insane. If the world was a large place, one void of social media or an open Internet (hello, Net Neutrality), people would be sending snail mail to loved ones across the country to describe Holder’s performance in that game.

“My Dearest Aunt Lucy, I write to you to tell you a wonderful story of a young person named Tra…”

Or something. Likely something, but you need not concern yourself with semantics.

In only 37 minutes of action, he scored only three points less than the entire UCF team did against St. John’s on Saturday. Let that wash over your soul like a warm shower.

Thanks to Holder’s insane level of play, edging Arizona State to national levels of attention, people have become emboldened to the point of publicly wondering if the Sun Devils are the team to beat in the Pac-12 this season.

With Arizona struggling, Oregon trying to re-calibrate after massive roster turnover, and UCLA without any Balls (get it?!), it isn’t as crazy a thing to ponder in late November as it would have been just a few short weeks ago.

Make no bones about it, though — this will be an entire team effort from ASU this season. And yet, the Sun Devils will go only as Tra Holder allows them. Hurley and his teammates will all play a huge, if not incredibly understated (in this column) role, but whatever noise the Bobby State Sun Hurleys ultimately make this season will come from ovations being served following Holder’s offensive outbursts.

Kids, this is only the college basketball version of #Pac12AfterDark because Holder is so nasty, aggressive, and pleasure educing offensively, he has to be rated NC-17.