On a night when Arizona State women’s basketball legend Briann January gave a pregame speech to the team about a team-first mindset, the Sun Devils failed to play team basketball, losing to Minnesota (1-1) 66-59 in overtime to fall to 1-1 on the season.
According to ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne, January, whose No. 20 jersey was hung from the rafters in a halftime ceremony, spoke to the Sun Devils prior to the game about how the ceremony would not have taken place without her ASU teammates.
However, the Sun Devils did not play team basketball on both ends of the floor Friday. They failed to make shots on offense while struggling to stop Minnesota guard Jasmine Powell on defense.
“I asked Bri to come in and talk to the team pregame,” Turner Thorne said. “And of course, she said, ‘I don’t have my jersey there, I don’t do anything without my teammates. I never thought I would do all this. It was all because of my teammates.’ And she talked about the power of team. Which is obviously a huge part of our culture and always has been. So it’s kind of ironic, wasn’t it? That was our pregame message. So not to judge my own team but obviously we’ve got to be more connected. And play better together.”
ASU shot just 24-72 (33 percent) from the field and 4-22 from 3-point land (18 percent). Turner Thorne equated the offensive struggles to too much isolation basketball.
“We’re not a team that’s going to come out ever again this year and play iso ball,” Turner Thorne explained. “That is not what we’re trying to do and I feel like we have people that feel like they’re supposed to be scorers. And we just made terrible decisions. We coached them every single second that we were in the game to make at least three passes, move them. We knew we could get layups and good shots.”
ASU failed to negate the offensive success of Powell. The guard had 21 points, nine rebounds and five assists and had a game-high three 3-pointers.
Sun Devil guard Taya Hanson explained what Powell did well against ASU on Friday.
“She’s a phenomenal player,” Hanson remarked. “I mean our goal heading into the game was to make it tough for her to score. But again, we just struggled to execute that plan. She was attacking hard on us. We could’ve drawn a couple more charges. That was definitely a goal of ours. But again, we’re just going to take it back and kudos to her but that’s not going to happen again.”
Turner Thorne echoed her senior, saying she will not let a player the Sun Devils key on have a performance like Powell had on Friday the rest of the year.
“We will not let a player that we say we are not going to let this player beat us, beat us again,” Turner Thorne said.
Another major factor in ASU’s loss Friday was the lack of rebonding success the Sun Devils had. For the second time in two games this season, ASU was outrebounded. Sophomore forward Maggie Besselink had a whopping 15 rebounds but no other Sun Devil had more than five. Minnesota grabbed 53 boards while ASU came down with just 45.
“We have to be better and especially guards,” Hanson remarked. “We can get in there and get some boards, not leave it up to our posts.”
Turner Thorne also discussed the rebounding issues and what she is having the team do to improve on the glass.
“We chart every single day, every practice, every rebound, every rebounding spot and they get their feedback,” Turner Thorne explained. “And I have never done that before but that’s how bad our rebounding is.”
ASU had a 27-24 halftime lead but squandered it with a poor offensive third quarter. The Sun Devils trailed by as much as 10 points in the third quarter and shot just 6-21 from the field. After making a few shots at the end of the period to stop the bleeding, they trailed 46-40 heading to the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Hanson took over. The senior had eight of her 16 points in the period, hitting two threes as well as a layup with 1:16 left to tie the game at 54. The shot proved to be the last make of regulation by either team, sending the game into overtime.
With momentum on their side as well as the home crowd, it seemed as though the Sun Devils might pull out a win in a game they did not play well in. However, the third quarter offensive struggles continued in overtime. ASU shot 2-8 in the period en route to the loss.
“It’s early,” said senior guard/forward Jade Loville. “We’re still learning to play with each other. I think we are still learning to move the ball better with each other and use the space, play off of each other. And I think that’s going to come but it came down to just playing as a team. And we could have done a much better job of that.”
ASU’s next game is on the road at BYU on Wednesday at 11 a.m. MST.
