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ASU women's basketball defeats Washington State in Pac-12 quarterfinals

The ASU Sun Devil bench erupts with joy as they pull ahead during an anxious last minute of Friday night's game. The tense seconds ticked by slowly before the Sun Devils would pull ahead with about 45 seconds to go, winning their twenty-fifth victory of the season 45-42 over the Utes on Feb. 27, 2015 at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)
The ASU Sun Devil bench erupts with joy as they pull ahead during an anxious last minute of Friday night's game. The tense seconds ticked by slowly before the Sun Devils would pull ahead with about 45 seconds to go, winning their twenty-fifth victory of the season 45-42 over the Utes on Feb. 27, 2015 at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)

The ASU Sun Devil bench erupts with joy as they pull ahead during an anxious last minute of Friday night's game. The tense seconds ticked by slowly before the Sun Devils would pull ahead with about 45 seconds to go, winning their twenty-fifth victory of the season 45-42 over the Utes on Feb. 27, 2015 at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press) The ASU Sun Devil bench erupts with joy as they pull ahead during an anxious last minute of Friday night's game. The tense seconds ticked by slowly before the Sun Devils would pull ahead with about 45 seconds to go, winning their twenty-fifth victory of the season 45-42 over the Utes on Feb. 27, 2015 at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. (J. Bauer-Leffler/The State Press)

Though the Pac-12 tournament has begun, nothing has changed for ASU women’s basketball.

The team recovered from a slow first half to score 48 points in the second, matching WSU’s total score, winning 67-48.

“I thought we did a great job in the second half just settling down, taking care of the ball and kind of doing what we do,” ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne said in a postgame press conference in Washington.

In the first half, ASU shot 27.6 percent from the field. Only one player scored more than two points — senior Promise Amukamara had nine that half.

Part of the scoring difficulties was due to foul trouble from sophomore forward Sophie Brunner. She got two fouls early and only played four minutes, making her only shot from the field in the process.

A larger reason for the difficulties was the turnovers forced by WSU. The Cougars defense was vicious, and they often attacked early in the shot clock or in the backcourt. ASU had 11 turnovers in the half.

Lucky for the Sun Devils, WSU wasn’t able to do much more. The dominant Cougar backcourt combined for 4-of-13 shooting. As a team, they shot 27.3 percent from the field.

Additionally, The Cougars struggled immensely from the free throw line. ASU fouled 12 times — five players finished the half with a pair of fouls — and the Cougars had 13 free throw attempts in the first half. They made only three.

ASU led 19-16 at the end of the first half. Sixteen points was the lowest scoring half WSU has had all season, and the combined 35 points was the lowest output in a half of a Pac-12 tournament game since that statistic began being recorded in the 1996-97 season.

In the first half, one of WSU’s guards, junior Lia Galdeira, collided with ASU forward Kelsey Moos going for a rebound. Moos landed on her left leg and Galdeira limped off the court. She was able to return a few minutes later and ASU was unable to take advantage of her absence.

“We have a pretty good rivalry with Washington State so we knew coming in this it was going to be a really physical game,” Moos said.

In the second half, the other WSU guard went down. Senior Tia Presley rolled her ankle while driving to the hoop and immediately cried out in pain. Trainers helped her get to the locker room. Tears were in her eyes and her teammates on the bench were reacting accordingly.

Somewhat miraculously, Presley returned. She finished with 16 points and seven steals.

“I knew it could be my last Pac-12 game if I didn’t play hard, so I just tried to come out and be aggressive,” she said.

WSU head coach June Daugherty called the performance of the two “gutsy.”

Galdeira, the second-best scorer in the Pac-12, finished with 12 points. Amukamara guarded her for the majority of the game.

“If there’s a perimeter player, a 20-point-a-game player, a dominant player, we have Promise,” Turner Thorne said. “We have not had a game this year when we needed Promise to step up and shut somebody down that she hasn’t done it.”

ASU recovered quickly in the second half. Brunner’s presence made an immediate impact.

She grabbed an offensive rebound on the first possession and made the ensuing layup. On the next play, she got the ball low again and scored. In the first four and a half minutes of the second half, Brunner went 4-of-4 from the field and helped push ASU’s lead near double digits.

“In the second half we settled down and finished and got Sophie back, which helped a lot,” Turner Thorne said.

ASU was attacking the post much more often with Brunner back in the game. The three bigs on the court, Brunner, Moos and sophomore center Quinn Dornstauder, combined for ASU’s first 18 points of the half.

ASU scored 28 points in the post in the second half. Brunner said her being out of foul trouble allowed her to be more aggressive.

“We weren’t helping (the guards) and we just weren’t playing successful in the first half,” she said.

All the work down low paid its dividends for ASU. Junior guard Peace Amukamara found her sister on a backdoor cut to the lane, who immediately passed the ball to an open Moos. The forward fumbled with it before finding a wide open junior guard Elisha Davis at the three-point lane. She drained it and put ASU up 42-27.

There was not much more that WSU could do. Galdeira continued driving and making impressive layups. The defense randomly assigned pressure on plays or attacked forwards when they received the ball at the arch. Nothing had any major impact, though, and ASU was able to rest the starters for the final couple minutes en route to a 67-48 victory.

“It's just nice to stay here more than a day,” Turner Thorne said.

 

Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow @Logan_Newsman on Twitter.

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