After opening with big wins over Air Force and Army, ASU women’s basketball looked unstoppable.

However, neither Air Force nor Army are a Big-10 team ranked No. 23 to start the season and coached by one of the greatest WNBA point guards of all-time, Lindsey Whalen.

Whalen’s squad, the Minnesota Golden Gophers, handed it to the No. 19 Sun Devils on Sunday culminating in an 80-66 win.

ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said the performance was a “rude awakening.”

“I say…every year that you forget how hard you have to play to win,” Turner Thorne said. “Every year I say that and it’s true and this was definitely a game that hopefully we can look at and go ok, we’re not playing hard enough to dictate things. I think…ton of great teachable moments. I definitely knew there was going to be some growing pains with this team…”

The Gophers were propelled to the victory by a dazzling shooting night in which they shot 50 percent from the field and 8-18 (44 percent) from three-point range.

Minnesota was led by guard Destiny Pitts’ 22 points, five rebounds and seven assists while shooting 8-16 from the field and 3-8 from deep.

Pitts was aided by 20 points from guard Gadiva Hubbard, who hit four three-pointers and grabbed four rebounds.

Forward Taiye Bello and guard Jasmine Brunson also made a major impact in the Gophers’ victory.

Bello had nine points and led all rebounders with 11. Brunson had a game-high six assists to go along with her 15 points on 6-12 shooting.

The game was a tale of the opening quarters of each half for ASU.

Minnesota came out on fire starting the game with a 9-0 run in the first quarter and held ASU to just nine points in the opening period. The Sun Devils shot just 4-17 in the quarter compared to Minnesota’s 8-15. ASU trailed 20-9 after one.

In the second quarter, ASU flipped the script, shooting 53 percent to cut the lead to just five points (37-32) heading to halftime.

However, the third quarter was a disaster for the Sun Devils. ASU shot a mere 5-18 in the quarter and allowed the Golden Gophers to shoot 8-12 (66.7 percent) to trail by 15 heading to the fourth.

In the fourth, ASU played a lot better, winning the quarter 22-21 and trimming the UMN lead to 10 with 2:36 to play but a three by Sara Scalia with 2:25 left was the dagger to put the Gophers up 13 and gave ASU no chance to come back.

A positive for the Sun Devils was the performance of Ja’Tavia Tapley in the game. The transfer- forward had another great game following her 18 points in 15 minutes last Sunday against Army. She had 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds in the loss.

Another positive for ASU was winning the rebounding battle. The Sun Devils grabbed 43 boards to 34 for the Gophers.

The game was supposed to be a homecoming for Jamie Ruden, a Minnesota native. News broke around 40 minutes before game time that the forward, who has been dealing with a foot injury, was not playing.

Turner Thorne said not having Ruden had a major impact on the outcome of the game. She also said Robbi Ryan not being fully healthy yet was a factor.

“Clearly not having Jamie out there was impactful because we just have all brand new post players and that showed today,” Turner Thorne said. Their newness and lack of experience and Robbi is just coming back off her injury. Even though I thought she was solid, she was just kind of not back to herself yet…”

The Sun Devils are home for their next matchup against Cal Poly next Sunday at 5 p.m. MST.