Russell and Ruden return home as Sun Devils face tough non-conference foe
Jamie Ruden and Kiara Russell will be living out a promise Sunday as ASU women’s basketball travels to Minneapolis to face the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
The promise is one Sun Devil coach Charli Turner Thorne makes to recruits where she tells them ASU will try to schedule a game close to where out of state players are from.
On Sunday, it will be a homecoming for Ruden and Russell as Ruden grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, a town about an hour away from Minneapolis, and Russell grew up in Minneapolis.
“We always promise to bring our players home that aren’t in the Pac-12 footprint,” Turner Thorne explained.
This promise meant a lot to Ruden.
“When (Turner Thorne) was recruiting me and promised me that, I thought that was really special,” Ruden stated. “Just because it shows her…care for families and she really cares about who we are as people so she really loves our families and supports our families so I think it’s really special that we’re making this happen and it’s our senior year too.”
Russell echoed Ruden.
“Charli is an amazing coach for doing something like this,” Russell said. “Not a lot of coaches will actually do this for their players.”
The game was something that almost never happened.
“So what happened was that the former coach of Minnesota (Marlene Stollings) wouldn’t schedule us, Turner Thorne explained…Once they switched coaches, we immediately called them…they immediately scheduled us.”
Russell said she found out she would be playing back in her old stomping grounds last season.
“I actually found out about it last year,” Russell said. “Coach (Meg Sanders) told me about it and I’m super stoked and I’m ready to go home.”
Ruden and Russell both have a plethora of friends and family members coming out to support them as they return home.
Ruden said she will have between 30 and 40 people in attendance to support her Sunday while Russell said she has whopping 50 who will be in attendance specifically to watch her play.
It is a special game for the two players as they will get to play a game in Williams Arena, nicknamed “the barn”.
“…It’s really special because…we were big fans of the U of M women’s team ever since I was four,” Ruden explained. “We’d go to their games all the time and I’ve always had that dream of playing college basketball so I’d look up to the U of M women’s team…so this will be really special to be on the court.”
The game will be extra fun for Ruden, a Minnesota Lynx fan, as she will face off against a team coached by one of the Lynx legends, Lindsey Whalen.
“I loved watching Lindsey Whalen growing up so that will be really cool,” Ruden said.
Russell said it will not be a big deal playing in front of her family as she has done it many times before.
Ruden said it will be “refreshing” to go home because she misses the snow and misses the cold.
The high temperature outside Williams Arena will be 38 degrees Fahrenheit Sunday, nearly 50 degrees cooler than the high of 86 in Tempe.
The matchup
The matchup with Minnesota will be potentially the toughest non-conference game for ASU.
The Golden Gophers came into the season ranked No. 23 in the preseason AP top-25 rankings but lost their opener to Missouri State, a team which made it to the Sweet 16 in March.
“Missouri State is really good…I’ve watched that game and I don’t think that’s going to be a bad loss,” Turner Thorne stated.
After the loss, Minnesota clobbered Vermont 90-58 on Nov. 17 and had another double-digit win, 77-61 over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The Gophers are of course led by head coach Lindsey Whalen, the terrific former WNBA star for the Minnesota Lynx and Connecticut Sun who won four championships and made five all-star teams over her 15-year career.
Turner Thorne said she is “excited” for Whalen’s budding coaching career, said she is doing a terrific job and said she is happy she decided to coach the college women’s game versus taking an NBA job.
Minnesota is led by a balanced attack of four scorers. Senior Taiye Bello, an All-Big Ten honorable mention player last year, is the team’s leading scorer in the early portion of the season. She is averaging 15.0 points per game and a team-leading 7.7 rebounds per game. Also contributing is junior guard/forward Destiny Pitts, who leads the team with 3.7 assists per game while averaging 12.3 points per game on 58.8 percent from three-point range. The two other players to watch are Jasmine Brunson (10.7 ppg) and Jasmine Powell (12.7 points in 20 minutes per game off the bench).
The Golden Gophers are a terrific free-throw shooting team at 79 percent as a team with Bello and Powell shooting well over 90 percent from the charity stripe.
“…It’s going to be just like a top-end Pac-12 road game so it’ll be a great gage for where we are at right now,” Turner Thorne said.
The game tips off at 2 p.m. MST and will be available on the Big Ten Network and NBC Sports Radio 1060 AM with Jeff Munn on the call.
Recruiting
The Sun Devils had five players officially sign to play in Tempe on Wednesday. ASU, currently dealing with being undersized, did not have any issues finding height in recruiting. They signed 6’3 forward, Katelyn Levings (No. 23 forward according to ESPN) out of Oklahoma City. ASU also signed 6’3 forward Kaeli Burton (16.8 ppg, 11.9 rebounds so far in high school in Washington), 6’3 guard Maggie Besselink out of Kingston, Ontario (No. 1 in Canada according to Turner Thorne), 6’1 guard Sydney Erikstrup out of Portland, Oregon and Jaddan Simmons, a 5’9 guard who has earned conference player of the year honors in De Pere, Wisc. Simmons is the daughter of former ASU football player Jason Simmons.
“…We just signed a lot of size with a lot of great athleticism and skill…,” Turner Thorne said.
