ASU junior guard Peace Amukamara guards Cal senior guard Brittany Boyd at Wells Fargo Arena on Feb. 8, 2015. Amukamara would shoot 4-6 from the field but the Sun Devils would fall to the Golden Bears 50-49. (Daniel Kwon/The State Press)In a game in which the No. 10 ASU women’s basketball team had 20 offensive rebounds, the most important came from Cal freshman forward Penina Davidson with about two seconds remaining.
ASU (21-3, 10-2 Pac-12) had been trailing the entire game. The Sun Devils fought back from a 14-point hole but couldn’t seem to take the lead.
The Sun Devils would hold Cal (18-5, 10-2 Pac-12) scoreless for minutes at a time, including 3:17 of the final 3:18 of the game. The Golden Bears had 15 second half turnovers. Sophomore forward Sophie Brunner said ASU forced them to make decisions and got into passing lanes.
Video by Logan Newman, Sports Reporter
She finished with seven steals.
ASU slowly inched its way back in the game. A transition basket here, an offensive rebound leading to a layup there. Junior guard Peace Amukamara kept the score close with under eight in the game.
Finally, with 13.3 seconds remaining, redshirt junior guard Katie Hempen hit her first basket of the game. It was a 3-pointer — a step-back dagger from the top-left side of the arch.
It’s what Hempen’s on the team to do. She had an off game, going 0-for-8 prior to the shot and missing her first four 3-point attempts. With seconds ticking off the clock, there was no sweat.
“We were supposed to be running a play for me to shoot it,” Hempen said. “Sophie and I think it was (sophomore center) Quinn (Dornstauder), set two really good screens for me and Sophie was open on the roll and I heard her yelling, but I was just like, ‘It’s bound to go in at some point in time.’”
ASU took a 49-48 lead.
It was up to ASU’s best attribute — defense — to maintain the lead. Cal had lost its two best players earlier in the fourth — senior guard Brittany Boyd hit her head on the floor after colliding with Hempen in a scary moment in the middle of the half and senior forward Reshanda Gray had fouled out with just a minute remaining.
The ball went to Cal freshman forward Mikayla Cowling. She was the obvious choice with Boyd and Gray on the sidelines and had scored 16 points in the game.
ASU junior guard Elisha Davis goes for a layup against Cal freshman guard Gabby Greene at the ASU vs. Cal women’s
basketball game at Wells Fargo Arena on Feb. 8, 2015.
The Sun Devils would be stunned by a late shot by the
Golden Bears losing 50-49. (Daniel Kwon/The State Press)
ASU junior guard Elisha Davis was guarding her. She escaped and attempted an acrobatic layup while driving to the right around Brunner.
She missed. The ball fell into a huddle of arms. Davidson came up with it and made the layup as time expired.
“It’s no one person’s job to get that rebound, it’s all of us,” Brunner said. “It’s on all of us.”
It was a lapse in fundamentals at the worst possible time. After playing most of the game strong, the final missed box-out ended it. It had been a good half — much better than the first.
ASU scored just 16 points in the first half in large part due to Cal’s half court trap defense.
A defender jogged up court with the ball handler. A second one was waiting at the half court line.
The offensive player could either attempt to dribble through it, pass it to the open player jogging up court with her or find an open player around the court. Typically, it would go to the other player at half court.
Once the ball was up court, three defenders would form a large triangle and two would surround the ball handler. This forced indecision and hesitation.
“They came out really aggressive and just kind of punched us in the face,” Hempen said. “We just needed to move the ball, have better shot fakes, pass fakes, the simple things.”
On the Golden Bears side, Cal wasn’t missing. Their transition game was strong, and players bolted back on offense to catch well-placed passes on the fast break. Easy layup ensued.
ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said her team doesn’t typically hustle back to safety on fast breaks because they’re fast enough to catch up. Today, she said, she wanted to release two safeties back on transition, but they didn’t practice it very much on Saturday because of fatigue from the night before. Cal took advantage of this.
Nine minutes into the game, Cal led 20-9 and was shooting 71 percent from the floor.
ASU began the slow fight back. The undoing in the final seconds came from being undersized against one of the tallest teams in the conference.
Turner Thorne said ASU needs to work harder on boxing out to compensate for their height discrepancy.
“We have to rebound better,” she said. “Even though we’re plus-6 in the Pac-12, it’s not good enough. For us to really do what we want to do in March and for us to really separate ourselves, we have to be a better rebounding team.
“If this team now takes it to heart in terms of rebounding, I think we’ll be better for it.”
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow @Logan_Newsman on Twitter.
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