It was an emotional senior day at Desert Financial Arena as the No. 24 Arizona State women’s basketball team lost to No. 4 Stanford 55-44.

The loss was not the only thing to sour senior day for the Sun Devils. ASU lost senior Kiara Russell midway through the second quarter to an apparent left knee injury.

The starting guard was playing defense near the basket when she fell down in visible, excruciating pain. She was unable to put any weight on her left leg as she was helped off the floor. She later returned to the bench wearing a large knee immobilizer.

“Our heart just goes out to her,” fellow ASU senior Jamie Ruden said. “That's our sister. So it's like when she's hurting everybody else is like, we feel it too. So it's like we’ve really got to take this to motivate us...We’ve just got to play for her no matter what and really come together for the rest of the basketball we have left.”

ASU senior guard Robbi Ryan said the loss of Russell had a big impact on the rest of the game for ASU.

“It had a tremendous impact,” Ryan said. “She's one of our senior leaders, starting guards and she just brings something to our team that...people don't see on the stat sheets. So yeah, it’s definitely a big loss and we’re just praying for her.”

ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said Russell is “most likely” out for the season. She said now it is “next woman up” to fill the void Russell will be leaving.

Turner Thorne said ASU will try to do its best without Russell but reminded the media room of the Oregon win earlier in the season when Russell was out. She also referenced the 2009 season when the Sun Devils lost guard Dymond Simon to a torn ACL in the last regular season game and made it to the Elite Eight.

“We’ve got great depth,” Turner Thorne said. “And we’re going to start working on that.”

With the loss, the Sun Devils finished the regular season 20-10 overall and 10-8 in the Pac-12.

ASU was dominated in the post on Sunday. Stanford forward Fran Belibi destroyed the Sun Devils in her 24 minutes off the bench. The freshman had a game-high 18 points on 9-10 shooting and added a game-high nine rebounds. The Cardinal outscored ASU 38-16 in the paint.

In the first quarter, both teams shot poorly from the field. ASU shot 3-16 and Stanford shot 5-15. However, Stanford made the last two buckets of the quarter to take the 10-7 lead heading to the second quarter.

The second quarter was when Stanford took off. The Cardinal went on a 10-2 run over the last 3:36 of the first half to take a 29-16 lead heading to halftime.

In the third quarter, ASU shot just 3-13 while Stanford was 8-13. ASU made 6-8 free-throws in the quarter to only be outscored 17-13 in the period but trailed 46-29 heading to the final period of play.

ASU surprisingly dominated the fourth quarter. After trailing by as much as 22 points early in the period, the Sun Devils went on a 13-2 run over the last 7:22 to only lose 55-44.

“I was proud of our team for fighting,” Turner Thorne said. “You shoot (28) percent against fourth-ranked team in the country. It’s going to be tough to win and we held them about 17 points below their average...I’m excited to go to battle with this team in March and the postseason.”

ASU starts the Pac-12 tournament on Thursday. The Sun Devils are ranked as the No. 5 seed and play the No. 12 seed Cal at 12:30 p.m. Arizona time.