ASU junior Elisha Davis pressures the Oregon offense on Friday, Jan. 23, 2015, at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)A 45-point second half propelled No. 13 ASU (18-1, 7-0 Pac-12) to a 70-58 victory over Oregon (8-10, 1-6 Pac-12) on Friday, continuing ASU's strong run in conference play.
“Our shots weren’t really falling in the first half, so we just needed to relax on offense,” said sophomore forward Kelsey Moos.
The main adjustment was just putting the ball in the hoop. In the first half, ASU shot 27 percent. Little of that was due to Oregon’s defense, with the Sun Devils missing wide-open opportunities.
Redshirt junior guard Katie Hempen went 1 for 8 from the field, missing all three of her three-pointers. Junior guard Elisha Davis missed a contested layup on a fast break opportunity.
The defining miss was with about 30 seconds remaining in the half. Davis found Moos wide open under the basket in transition. Moos missed the layup as Oregon went into the half with a 27-25 lead.
“It was just one of those days,” Hempen said. “Sometimes your shots don’t fall, they go in and out, layups don’t fall.”
ASU broke out on a 10-0 run to open the second half and never looked back.
“I think we were trying to play more vertical,” Moos said. “In the first half we were playing sideways a little bit and we were just rushing our shots.”
Moos was a key player in that run, as six of her eight points in the game came in a 2:05 span to begin the half.
She was outmuscling and outplaying Oregon senior center Megan Carpenter. The lengthy big had three blocks in the first half, and ASU was forced to make adjustments during the interval.
ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said she spoke to her team about different ways to match up against the Oregon bigs and help the “undersized” sophomore forward Sophie Brunner when she got into trouble.
“We talked about (going) inside-out, cutting off of it,” Turner Thorne said. “We got more aggressive (and) penetrated."
The Sun Devils began relying on pump fakes, pivots and patience.
“Oregon’s got a couple of really big players that like to block shots,” Turner Thorne said. “All we had to do when they went for it was get into their space and we were just going straight up.”
Carpenter was the second big ASU had to worry about. The first was junior forward Jillian Alleyne, who came into Friday ranked second in the NCAA in rebounds with 15.1 per game.
Brunner, who was patrolling Alleyne for most of the game, said she tried to keep her out of the post and not let her get comfortable.
Alleyne only scored six points in the first half. Nine of her points came in a five-minute span in the second, at which point ASU was chugging ahead on offense and had lost a lot of defensive intensity.
A big piece of the game plan was to prevent her from even touching the ball. Brunner did a good job rotating around her to stay between Alleyne and the ball handler.
When Alleyne would dart out of the key and past the three-point arch, Brunner would continue to try to stay between the two. It didn’t always work out: Alleyne got the ball early, drove to the hoop and made a contested left-handed layup around redshirt junior guard Eliza Normen. The effort was there though, and the “contested” is what matters. Alleyne got few easy looks, and that’s what the Sun Devils needed to stay in the game in the first half.
“Sophie might not have had the offensive game that she normally has, but I thought she had a brilliant defensive game,” Turner Thorne said.
Brunner wasn’t alone on defense. ASU double-teamed Alleyne quite often.
“We had a couple of really good rotations where I would go in and double and I think Promise got in the passing lanes a couple of times,” Moos said.
In the second half, Oregon lost energy. Alleyne sat for just three minutes total, often getting breaks that lasted between 30 seconds and one minute. Junior guard Lexi Peterson sat on the bench for a total of five seconds: she was subbed out with 9:55 in the second, and then put back in after a timeout with 9:50 remaining.
Hempen said that in general, she and her teammates can see when the other team loses energy and motivation. She attributed “team touches,” which basically high-fives and positive remarks after plays, to keeping her team going.
“Our team’s very aware of what the other team does," she said. "Our team really works on team touches after every single play no matter what the play is. You can see the other team’s energy. Their head’s down, they don’t do team touches… you can just see their connectedness disappear.”
ASU's next game is Sunday, Jan. 25 against No. 9 Oregon State (16-1, 6-0 Pac-12) at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe.
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow @Logan_Newsman on Twitter.
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