The offseason has been one of retooling and transition for the Sun Devils.
The Arizona State women’s basketball season gets underway in just a few days and the team has lofty goals for the upcoming season.
The Sun Devils ranked No. 18th in the coaches’ preseason poll, and No. 20 in the AP preseason poll are coming off a season where they finished 22-11 overall and 10-7 in the Pac-12 on their way to their sixth-straight NCAA tournament, losing 76-53 to Mississippi State in the Sweet 16.
ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said she likes the ranking because it reminds her of the current team, “good with a lot of room to grow.”
The offseason for the Sun Devils has been one of retooling and transition for Turner Thorne and her team.
Gone to graduation is superstar forward and the team’s leading scorer from last season, Kianna Ibis. Also gone to graduation or out of eligibility are key seniors from last year’s team in Courtney Ekmark, Charnea Johnson-Chapman and Sophia Elenga.
Turner Thorne said it is up to this year’s seniors to step up and fill the void on the court and leadership-wise of the group from last year.
“…Your seniors have to bring the sense of urgency,” Turner Thorne stated. “If they don’t then…good luck.”
ASU features four talented seniors who return from last season. Point guard Reili Richardson (5.0 apg in 2018-19) and shooting guard Robbi Ryan (37.2 3P% in 2018-19) are the seniors with starting experience who will lead the way for the Sun Devils.
Forward Jamie Ruden and backup point guard Kiara Russell are two seniors who came off the bench last season and should see their roles increase this year.
“There’s nothing that they haven’t seen,” Turner Thorne said. “And they’re very excited for their senior year and they want to do really well so they’ve been kind of the foundation leadership wise…”
Ryan discussed how the seniors plan on filling the void left by last year’s senior class.
“I think me as well as the other seniors have really just tried to step and help the underclassman,” Ryan explained. “Just try to keep leading and teaching them what our standards are and how we play.”
Another senior on the roster who was not on the team in previous seasons is graduate-transfer forward Ja’Tavia Tapley. Tapley, who played her other three years of eligibility at USC, will provide some height to an undersized ASU team.
Turner Thorne said Tapley’s decision to transfer to ASU was a “godsend”.
“In a perfect world, we were like well if we can just find a 6’2, 6’3 grad transfer that can play four and five and fit our system and our culture that would be perfect,” Turner Thorne explained. “…It was exactly what we were hoping for.”
Also joining the team are three talented freshmen. Leading the way is the No. 44 overall recruit out of Centennial High School in Nevada, forward Eboni Walker. In her senior year, Walker was named the Gatorade player of the year in the state of Nevada and led her team to a fifth-straight state title in 2019. Alongside Walker will be guards Sydnei Caldwell, a 2019 McDonald’s All-American game nominee, and Sara Bejedi, a World University Games participant this past summer for Finland who averaged 16.2 points per game in the tournament.
Turner Thorne said it is “yet to be determined” how many minutes the young guns will receive in 2019-20 but said Walker, being a forward, is especially important this season due to the loss of her center in Johnson-Chapman and forwards Elenga, Ekmark and Ibis.
Walker said the adaptation process to ASU has been “pretty good” and said she cannot wait to show what the team has been working on. She said the competition in the Pac-12 and the fast-paced style of the Sun Devils influenced her decision to come to ASU.
The Sun Devils return four sophomores in guard Taya Hanson, forwards Iris Mbulito and Jade Van Hyfte and guard Jamie Loera. All four sophomores saw time on the floor last year but none of them saw much playing time due to the seniors dominating the minutes.
“Jayde (Van Hyfte) looks amazing,” Turner Thorne said. “She’s been starting the scrimmages for us and she had a year of mentorship behind Kianna Ibis and did her due diligence and working.”
“We (the sophomores) have improved,” Van Hyfte said. “I think just like learning…we’ve learned so much from last year and this past (offseason) we got in the gym so much more and we’ve just been working pretty much every single day for this season. And I think we’ve gained so much experience from last year and we learned so much. So I think we’ll definitely be ready this season.”
The roster was not the only part of the team to go through changes. The coaching staff will welcome on a new face as Nikki Blue joins the coaching staff in place of Briann January who decided to resume her full-time playing career.
Blue was a four-time all-conference selection at UCLA from 2003-2006 and played five years in the WNBA which included 22 starts for the Washington Mystics in 2008.
Playing small is going to be how it has to be for Turner Thorne and her team this season. News broke Thursday that Eva Rubin, the Sun Devils’ 6’5 junior center, was no longer with the team. While Rubin did not see much playing time during her first two seasons, her role was expected to increase as she was going to be a rebounding option off the bench.
Rubin leaving means ASU’s tallest player is the 6’3 Tapley and with the smaller team, Turner Thorne knows rebounding is of utmost importance this season.
“Every day it’s the No. 1 thing out of my mouth.” Turner Thorne said. “We were not good at all when we first started practicing. I mean I couldn’t even believe how not good we were and we’ve gotten a lot better…”
ASU’s non-conference schedule is not as difficult as last year when the team faced eventual national champion Baylor. However, the Sun Devils do square off Nov. 17 against AP preseason No. 23 Minnesota and coach Lindsey Whalen who was a four-time WNBA champion during her playing career.
The conference schedule is where the season will heat up for ASU. The team will start conference play with rival Arizona on Dec. 29. The Wildcats are coming off a WNIT title and have one of the top-five players in the Pac-12 in guard Aari McDonald. After Arizona, the Sun Devils will play three top-20 teams in four games in No. 11 UCLA on Jan. 3, No. 1 Oregon and guard Sabrina Ionescu, who would have been the No. 1 pick in the 2019 WNBA draft if she had decided to leave school early, on Jan. 10 and No. 7 Oregon State on Jan. 12.
ASU will have to play UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State again in February and it will be three times in three games. The Sun Devils will face off with UCLA at home on Feb. 2 before traveling to Oregon State on Feb. 7 and Oregon on Feb. 9, maybe the two toughest environments in the Pac-12.
After that gauntlet is over ASU’s schedule cools off for about two weeks before No. 3 Stanford and its three top-20 recruits come into Tempe on Mar. 1 to wrap up the regular season.
Turner Thorne said it his her goal to beat all of the top-25 teams in the Pac-12 this season.
“We want to beat all of them,” Turner Thorne stated. “We were in one-possession games…we beat Oregon State twice and we should have beat UCLA at home…we had said no here, really, you take it and then Stanford kind of similar…one-possession game and Oregon…one possession game…We’re excited to play all those teams again. I think they’ll be better this year but this team…we feel like we could be better as crazy as that sounds with those great seniors that we lost.”
Van Hyfte and Walker followed their coach in saying their group could be something special this season.
“Just go out there and win,” Walker said. “That’s all you can do.”
“I think our goals (are) to win as many games as possible,” Van Hyfte stated. “I know we can do it.”
If the Sun Devils are going to meet the goals they have set for themselves this season, they will have to be better offensively. Last season, they were No. 1 in the Pac-12 in scoring defense but just No. 10 in scoring offense.
Turner Thorne said individual offense was basically all the team worked on over the offseason to improve from last year.
Already the improvement has been showing as ASU scored at least 70 points in both of its closed scrimmages against Texas and Nebraska.
The season tips off in Tempe on Nov. 5 against Air Force.
